


Real Man, Always Thinking With My Fists

by taralkariel



Series: No Place in the World [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Winter Soldier (Comics)
Genre: (by the end), F/M, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-22
Updated: 2016-09-06
Packaged: 2018-08-10 11:54:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 26,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7843921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taralkariel/pseuds/taralkariel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Winter Soldier recognizes Steve Rogers - or, at least, enough to save his life.  And to go to a museum about Captain America.  So why is he hiding in Romania two years later?<br/>Gap-filler from CATWS through CACW and beyond.<br/>Companion to Everybody Else's Girl, with some mentions of WinterWidow.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Shout Out From the Bottom of My Lungs

**Author's Note:**

> Titles from The Driver by Bastille.

Trapped.

He is trapped.

No matter how he pushes, the steel beam won’t move.  His arm hurts – everything hurts.  But, more importantly, he is trapped.

The Winter Soldier doesn’t get trapped.  He doesn’t get stuck in places.  He thinks ahead of his targets and rarely has to defend himself from them.  Of course, his target couldn’t have known that the chaos happening outside would cause him to get trapped – and not killed.  Trapped and unable to report back to his handlers.  Trapped and unable to finish his mission.

He _always_ finishes his missions.  He _never_ gets beaten to the point of unconsciousness and fails.  He never watches powerlessly as his target completes his own mission, despite the considerable damage the Winter Soldier has inflicted on him.  It shows a kind of obstinacy that is somehow familiar…

Trapped and the target is approaching.  The target will kill him – won’t he?  It’s what he would do in his place.  Even if that isn’t part of the mission.  He is too dangerous to be left here, too much of a potential threat.

He watches, apprehensive as the man he was sent to kill drops to his knees painfully and starts to lift the beam that lies across his chest.  The strain is evident and it surely causes him to lose more blood – too much to warrant such an action.  He doesn’t understand, but he takes advantage of the opportunity to escape.  His left arm doesn’t hurt – it never has – so he uses it to pull himself out from under the hard steel.  Once he is free, it falls back down heavily.

Pulling himself into a crouching position, he looks over to take stock of his target – uncertain about the other man’s intentions.  Is this gesture intended to keep him from attacking again?  A bargain of sorts?

Catching his eye, the target speaks.  “You know me,” he tells him, almost gently.

That reminds him of something – of pain, of being punished.  “No, I don’t!” he snarls, lashing out with his left arm when he gets too close.  The man falls back and he is surprised and disturbed by how weak he feels.  The helicarrier is going to crash – he can see the river below moving by quickly – and getting closer.  He needs a way out of here.  He’s already failed, so maybe killing his unkillable and dogged target won’t be necessary.  But he needs to escape before the target does whatever he’s planning.

“Bucky.”

Something about that…  It means something.  He looks up, momentarily thrown.

“You’ve known me your whole life,” the target continues, determined.

He stares without seeing, confusing images flashing before his eyes.  But only for a moment.  Backhanding the target takes a lot out of him, but it stops the flashes.  Something explodes around them – he needs to get out of here.

“Your name is James Buchanan Barnes.”  The name is spaced out, perhaps due to the target’s exhaustion and injuries.  Or to have greater impact – to make him remember.

“Shut up!” he screams when the visions return, punching the target’s shield with all of his remaining strength.  Breathing heavily, he pulls himself unsteadily to his feet and faces the target.

The other man also stands, losing his balance briefly and holding his shield uselessly at his side.  “I’m not going to fight you,” he says, letting the shield drop through a hole in the glass.  “You’re my friend.”  He stands straight, staring at the Soldier, expectant.

It doesn’t make any sense.  Why is he doing this?  Why doesn’t he kill him?  Why did he help him when he was trapped?  He was sent here to kill him and he has no reason to think he won’t follow through.  Angry and confused, he rushes at the target, knocking him down easily since he makes no move to resist.

“You’re my mission,” he growls, leaning in close, expecting to see a more familiar reaction.  Fear or an attempt at bargaining – at least a regret for not defending himself.  Not just silent determination.  “You’re – my – mission,” he repeats, landing a punch on the target’s face between each one.  And the target…  He just lays there and takes it, unmoving.  He stops, exhausted and confused, fist raised to strike.

“Then finish it.  Because I’m with you till the end of the line,” the target says.

He has killed a lot of people.  They never…  They never stare at him as though they are waiting for it, as though it’s worth it.  They never give him names and call him a friend.  They never look at him as though he means anything to them.  They never sit back and let him beat them to death.  Why won’t he fight?  He could win.  Even injured as he is, the Soldier is injured more.  They might both die if they fought here, on this crashing behemoth.  But surely it would be worth it to try?

The end of the line…  The end of the line.  It’s not a literal statement – it’s figurative.  It’s familiar.  It means…  It means when it’s all over.  When there’s nothing left.  When they’re trapped behind the front lines with no support coming and the only resort is to fight their way out, hoping at least some of the guys will make it.

Wait.  He’s never had a mission with other people before.  Has he?  He could almost see them for a moment…  Was this man one of them?  The target…  He’s familiar but in an odd way.  Like…  Like he should be smaller.  Like he used to be someone else.  Like they both used to be someone else.  He stares, eyes widening as the beat-up kid under him suddenly looks –

A crash – the place is falling apart.  The glass beneath him drops and he automatically grabs a beam above his head with his left hand.  His sudden weight on the place where metal meets flesh hurts, but he barely notices as he watches the other man fall away, into the river below.  He watches as explosions deafen him and the man disappears into the murky water.  Then he lets go.

It takes a little while to find him – there is debris everywhere and more raining down.  His right arm is useless and of little help for swimming as he searches.  Where is he?

He doesn’t question his actions.  He doesn’t think about what he’s doing.  He just looks until – there he is.  He wraps his metal fingers around the strap on the man’s uniform.  Then he pulls him painfully to the surface.  The man breathes.  A sudden, unexpected feeling of relief floods him and he almost drops the target in surprise.

Then he swims.  It is hard.  He has to use his right arm to pull them along.  It hurts.  The pain in his head makes things confusing, and he sees spots.  But he swims.  He swims until his feet can touch the bottom.  Until he can walk, pulling the man along behind him.  Until they are on the muddy shore.

He pulls the man up far enough that the water won’t suck him back in.  Then he straightens, looking down at him.  He doesn’t know what he’s looking for, but he stares nonetheless.  The man – his target? – breathes, letting water out of his mouth.  His eyes stay closed.  That’s good.  If he awakens, he might say more strange and unsettling things.

Stepping back, he looks toward the river, toward the destruction.  People will be looking for him.  He doesn’t know who.  He doesn’t care.  They will find his target here.  But they won’t find the Soldier.  They can’t.

Scanning the other shore line, he turns around and begins walking away.  He’s soaking wet and holding his injured arm close to his chest.  His left arm will be obvious, will make people know who he is.  He needs to disappear.

He needs to go back to his handlers, a more reasonable voice in his head insists.

But he doesn’t want to do that.  He doesn’t want to go back to… to whatever it would be.  There is a name – James Buchanan Barnes.  He doesn’t know what it means.  He doesn’t know if it’s his.  He doesn’t know who the man he just pulled from the river was, or why he saved his life.  But he’s going to find out.


	2. A Plague on Both Your Houses

There are people around.  They are looking toward the river, toward the wreckage.  Emergency crews are still arriving, heading for the Triskelion, for the other crashes.  Hopefully for the river bank, so they find his target there.

He pushes that thought away.  It doesn’t make sense.  Why would he give a damn about a target?  Because he gave a damn about me, he thinks, clenching his jaw.  But why?  Who was he?  Did they used to work together?  Why didn’t they anymore?  Why couldn’t he remember – remember anything?

He remembered being given his mission.  They had told him to go the Triskelion, to find Captain America.  And to stop him by whatever means necessary.  He knew, from the way they said it, that they were unsure of his survival.  That didn’t seem normal.  When they called in the asset, he finished the job.  He knew that much, even if he wasn’t sure how he knew that, or what other jobs he had done.

His clothes were starting to dry, which was pleasant.  The air was warming as the day passed and he waited patiently.  After leaving the river, he had made his way stealthily to the nearest street.  The chaos behind him attracted most passerby’s attention, and he quickly found a car with a few parking tickets on its windshield.  Getting into it took a bit longer than he would have liked, but now he has a safe place to lie low for a while.

Gritting his teeth, he uses the seat in front of him as leverage to force his arm back into the shoulder joint.  A hiss escapes him but he feels better afterwards.  There is a blanket across the back seat, so he pulls it over himself and closes his eyes.  Might as well sleep until the cover of darkness gives him the opportunity to return to his handlers without being noticed.

 

_He stood on the rooftop, staring into the dark window across the street.  Waiting.  Barely breathing.  His Barrett M82A 1M was heavy on his right shoulder, but he wouldn’t move it to his left.  He wouldn’t move at all.  Finally – the light came on.  A man – not his target – was facing the window, looking down.  Talking to someone who was sitting._

_The light went off, but he could see where the shadows were darker – where the person who was not his target was standing and continuing to look down.  Until – finally – he looked up, eye level.  Letting out his breath and holding completely still, he shot – once, then two more.  A dark shape fell and the man he’d left alive pulled his target further into the apartment.  Not that it mattered._

_Certain of his success, he stashed his rifle, pausing to look into the windows again.  There was movement – the younger man, not his target, was heading his way.  So he turned and ran – across the length of the roof.  He could hear crashing below him as he was chased through the building.  Perhaps he should have shot them both.  But he didn’t overstep orders – he could handle delicate ops just as easily as the messy ones._

_The next rooftop was lower but he didn’t slow down, just rolled to cushion the fall.  Then kept running.  A crash and the other man was behind him.  His pursuer stopped and – something was coming toward him.  He turned around to catch it easily in his left hand.  The other man stopped and stared, seeming stunned and no longer intent on the chase.  It was a shield.  The man had thrown a shield at him.  That was strange._

_But had nothing to do with his mission, so he threw it back, hard.  And used the distraction to jump off the roof and duck into a window frame.  Holding his breath, he listened and waited until his pursuer went away.  Then he waited a little longer before going to retrieve his weapon._

_A few strange thoughts slipped into his mind, but he ignored them.  He had to return to his handlers before they sent someone to find him.  Before they decided he should be punished._

Sitting up abruptly, he gasps.  That man – not his target but the one who gave chase – he was the one who saved him.  Whom he saved from the river.  Captain America.  They had met before, though he hadn’t been in uniform the first time.  Was that why Captain America remembered him?  No…  That didn’t make sense.  His pursuer’s face had been unrecognizing then – he hadn’t tried to give him a name or talk to him, possibly because of the mask obscuring his features.  There must have been something else, some other contact.

He shakes his head in an attempt to clear his thoughts, but all he can think of is the man, Captain America, being at the other end of his rifle.  It is a familiar thought – it has happened before.  But… but he _was_ in his uniform then.  Unlike in the dream he’s just had.  And… And he gets the sense that his intent had not been to shoot him but to help him.  Strange.

It is evening, the sun just dipping below the horizon.  The cleanup crews are still hard at work, but the crowd has dissipated.  It should be safe now.  As safe as it will ever be, anyway.  He doesn’t know what happened, what the importance of those helicarriers was to his masters, or who stopped them.  But he does know that it’s not something that has happened before.  That his masters tried something and it did not work – that, even if he failed, he was far from the only one.  Things are different.  What does that mean for him?

These thoughts consume him as he makes his way slowly through the city.  It is not far to the Ideal Federal Savings Bank, but he takes a circuitous path nonetheless.  He could be being followed.  By whom or for what reason, he has no idea.  It’s a habit more than anything else.  He suspects everyone is far too busy to worry about him after the events of the day, though.

He pauses when he sees the building, an unpleasant feeling in the pit of his stomach.  Bad things happened there.  Bad things he doesn’t want to repeat.  Pain – and – something else.  He can’t remember.  It frustrates him, not to remember.  Why doesn’t he remember?  Why can’t he think of anything before today?  Before being sent this morning to stop anyone interfering with the launch of the helicarriers?  Why has he not questioned this before?

Perhaps there are answers in there.  Perhaps not.  But he’s here, and something in the back of his mind drives him to go inside.  Slowly, hesitantly, he makes his way forward.  The bank is closed, of course – for a few hours by now.  But he knows how to get inside buildings that are far more secure than this.  Especially since they should be expecting him.

There are two men in the vault.  They are surprised at his return.

“It’s… It’s you,” one says while the other gasps.  He doesn’t answer.  He’s staring at them, thinking that he knows them from more than just the orders this morning.  He’s known them for a long time, he thinks.  They give him orders, they – they – do things to him.  They make him want to go and do things for them.  Bad things.  Terrible things.

“M-m-mission report.”

No, they did not expect him to come back from the mission.  They are afraid.  They should be.  “It’s done.  Captain America is dead,” he tells them.  As they expect him to.  One breathes a sigh of relief.

He doesn’t know who Captain America is, why the man seems to think he knows him.  Why he was sent to kill him.  Why these men are glad to hear he was successful.  But he doesn’t like it.

There are others, others he’s killed.  Others whom he has beaten to death, others he’s choked and killed using nothing but his bare hands.  Many more he’s killed with the arsenal of weaponry they always give him.  These men give him.  They are afraid when they do it, when they send him out.  Why?  Do they doubt his loyalty?  Should they?  He is not loyal to them.  He is loyal to – to – the man in the suit.  Something… Pierce?  That sounds right.  But he is not here.  And he does not ever give the Soldier a name.  He does not treat him as anything more than an asset.

But maybe…  Maybe he is more than a killer.  Maybe he only kills because of what these men did to him.

Lashing out, he knocks the closest man to the ground.  There is machinery near him – he doesn’t like it.  It hurts him and makes him do things.  He strikes that, too, sending pieces crashing to the ground, and grabs the other man by his neck.  Faces flash before his eyes of others whose necks he has crushed beneath his fingers.

“P-p-please,” the man begs.  Others have begged, too.  Telling him they had families, children, trying to give him a reason to let them live.  But he didn’t.

But maybe today…  He stops, releases slowly.  Maybe he doesn’t need to kill anyone anymore.


	3. This Thing, It's a Family Affair

The machinery was destroyed – that’s important.  But now he leaves, ignoring the two technicians.  They are no longer relevant.  He won’t kill them – he’s not going to kill anyone – and the only threat they pose is their understanding of the machinery.  Which is gone now.  So he will disappear to keep them from touching him ever again.

First, he needs clothes.  Regular clothes.  Not his mission gear.  His weaponry was lost during the fight or the swim – not that he needs it.  His left arm is more than capable of defending himself, and he has no intention of attacking anyone.  So, even if he feels vulnerable without anything more substantial, he will be fine.  But he needs to change into civilian attire.  Has he done that before?  He doesn’t remember.  Maybe.  If a mission went south, and he needed to hide out for a while...  There were always safe houses when he was in the field.  Just in case.

He pauses in the alley outside the bank, thinking.  Was there a safe house on this mission?  No…  He wasn’t expected to survive, and, if he did, was expected to come back here.  But his dream indicated that… that he’d been here, awake and out of cryo, for a while.  Or maybe that was years ago – how can he know?  But he thinks…  He thinks he received orders to go on that mission inside this bank, too.  So was there a safe house then?

Yes!  It’s just… it’s a mile or so from here.  Not far to walk, but hard to keep from being noticed.  Especially if they are looking for him.  He’s not sure who “they” are, but he knows he doesn’t want anyone to find him.  Even Captain America?  Yes, even him.  If he is who the captain thinks he is, he doesn’t remember.  So he doesn’t want to see him, not yet.  Not until he’s sure this isn’t a trick.

People don’t use clotheslines anymore.  They used to.  There used to be lines strung between apartment buildings for people to dry their clothes.  Now they… they don’t do that.  He doesn’t know where the clear mental picture of clotheslines in an alley is coming from, but he doesn’t see any in his immediate vicinity.  Which is okay.  He would… he would hate to steal something someone might need.

He keeps to alleys and avoids anyone he sees – it’s late, so there aren’t very many people on the street.  Especially after all the explosions and general destruction.  Most are safe in their homes, he imagines.  Perhaps in bed.  When was the last time he was in a bed?  He can’t remember.  It’s frustrating, not being able to remember, but it will pass.  He hopes.  In any case, it’s not important right now.  What is important is getting off the street so that neither the authorities or his masters can find him.

Of course…  If he’s going to their safe house, can he really expect to remain free of them?  He pauses to reconsider.  There isn’t anywhere else to go.  The technicians were afraid of him, perhaps others will be, too.  Perhaps he can use that to keep out of their control.  He doesn’t want to go back to following their orders.  Not after what they made him do.

And what he had to give up in order to do it.  He doesn’t know who he is, and only vaguely remembers anything before this morning.  It’s troubling.  Maybe he had a life, a family?  Somewhere to belong before.  Or maybe not.  Maybe he was lost and they gave him purpose.  He doesn’t know.  He hopes more dreams come to tell him what kind of person he was before he gave up everything to be their Soldier.

The safe house.  It’s just an apartment, and not a high-end one.  Still, it’s comfortable and, more importantly, empty.  He lets himself in and does a careful sweep of the place.  No one has been here for more than twenty-four hours, possibly up to forty-eight, and there’s no indication that someone planned to return.  It’s a good enough place to spend the rest of the night.  There is one bedroom attached to the bathroom, and he realizes that he is still cold.

He’s always cold – isn’t he?  Maybe he doesn’t have to be.  He finds some clothes in the closet, several different sizes.  Some might fit him.  Hesitantly, he takes them to the bathroom and tests out the shower.  He doesn’t know when he last took a shower.  But this one is warm and pleasant and he feels relaxed for the first time he can remember.  Which, granted, isn’t saying much.

It’s a while before he feels ready to leave the warm water, letting it wash over him and ease his aching muscles.  His right arm is doing better, but will be sore for a while.  The other wounds he sustained are less noticeable.  When he’s finished, he dries off and tries on the clothes he found.  It takes a few tries to find ones that fit.

Fully dressed, he drops onto the bed to sleep.  Perhaps it would be more comfortable to be wearing less, but he hates that idea.  It makes him feel exposed, vulnerable.  He found a black t-shirt, a blue plaid button-down shirt, and a green denim jacket, as well as jeans, long socks and a hat.  It’s a little warm, but it’s better than being cold.  Anything is better than that.  The layers keep his left arm insulated so its cold doesn’t seep into him while he sleeps.

 

_There was a crash in the alley behind the theater, and he stopped walking, a sinking feeling in his stomach.  Disappointingly, but not unexpectedly, he saw a familiar blond man getting a beating from a much larger man.  He didn’t know the latter and didn’t know what he’d done to upset the former, but he would intervene._

_“Hey!  Pick on someone your own size,” he growled, grabbing the man’s arm and pulling him away from – from – whoever it was._

_When the assailant threw a punch, he missed.  And he responded by punching him and then kicking him when his back was turned.  It was enough to drive him away.  Then he turned back to the slightly injured man – his friend?_

_“Sometimes I think you like getting punched,” he said, long-suffering._

_“I had him on the ropes,” the other man insisted, picking himself up._

A sound – the front door opening – wakes him abruptly.  He stares at the ceiling in confusion, not sure where he is.  Then he gets to his feet as the sound of boots shuffling toward him gets his attention.  Three, at least.  Maybe up to five.  No more than that.  Dreams are irrelevant now as he waits, poised to attack.  Defending himself is paramount – the rest can wait.

Someone opens the bedroom door – a stocky man in his early thirties, five eleven, two hundred ten pounds – and stops, clearly shocked to see him.  Or to see anyone here, maybe – it’s not clear.  Behind him are four other men of about the same size and build.  All are wearing tac gear and armed.  Seconds stretch by as they stare at each other, waiting for someone to make the first move.

Because he is who he is, he’s the one who moves first.  He won’t kill them.  But he won’t let them take him.  Whoever they are, they are not ordinary civilians.  Which makes them employees of his former masters or their enemies.  And he has no interest in being better acquainted with either.

So he grabs the nearest thing – a reading lamp – and throws it at the closest man.  The frozen tableau explodes into action and he has no time to think of anything else.  The lamp pushes back man #1, while man #2 jumps forward to defend him.  It takes only one hit from his left arm to drop him – not dead, but not going to be a threat anytime soon – and the other four all take a few steps back and aim their weapons at him.

“Halt,” man #1 says firmly.

He complies – second nature and it takes him a moment to realize he doesn’t want to.

“Who are you?” the man continues, obliviously.

Complying isn’t something he wants to do anymore.  He won’t kill for them, he won’t do what they say.  He wants to leave and never come back.  He doesn’t want to answer any questions – whether to state mission reports or otherwise.  Besides… he doesn’t know how to answer this particular question.

So he doesn’t.  There are pistols trained on him – he doesn’t care.  He blocks with his left arm as he rushes toward man #3.  Close-range gunshots are loud, and his ears are ringing as he deflects the bullets then grabs the man’s gun out of his hands.  Man #3 stares, eyes wide, and says something.  He can’t hear him.  He just grabs his arm and swings him arounds to crash into his friends.  Man #5 is struck hard enough to lose his balance, so the two of them go down for a moment.

Men #1 and #4 are still prepared to attack, and he closes in on them, knocking the guns from their hands at the first opportunity.  Man #4 pulls out a knife, but he gets that out of his grasp, too.  There is shouting, both at him and to each other.  After his ears stop ringing, he continues to ignore them.  It doesn’t matter what they’re saying.

Finally, they’re all down.  Not dead.  Not even in need of immediate medical attention – he didn’t use any of the guns or knives.  And was careful with his fist.  Now it is time to go.  He scans the room briefly, considering if there is anything he should take with him.  There will be no more safe houses for him.  He will have to find his own way out there.

There is a backpack by the door – he glances in it and sees supplies.  Supplies he will need.  So he swings it over his shoulder and walks out the door.  He doesn’t know where he will go, but hopes he can find somewhere to rest that won’t end in a fight.


	4. It's Drawing Out My Weakness

Disappearing is easy for him – staying that way is harder.  It is a few hours before dawn when he leaves the “safe” house.  And he is so tired.  He thinks he hasn’t been this tired before, at least not for a long time.  His handlers keep him busy and with enough energy to finish any assignment, no matter how involved it is.  So perhaps they gave him something to stay alert and he’s feeling the effects wear off.

Or maybe he’s just unused to having all these thoughts swirl through his mind, making it difficult to focus.  Little things catch his attention and remind him of – something.  Sometimes he can picture them clearly, but can’t figure out where he’s seen them before more specifically.  But, most of the time, he just stares at them, unable to tear his gaze away and unable to come up with a reason why he should be interested in that street lamp or the way that balcony hangs over the courtyard, or whatever else.

There are enough alleys to keep him mostly unnoticed, and casual observers are rare at this time of night.  So he’s not overly worried, except for feeling so damn tired.  He contemplates sitting on the ground and dozing for a few hours behind a dumpster.  But that’s not wise – he’s not that desperate to sleep.  Not yet anyway.  So he keeps walking through the city, uncertain and aimless.

It’s a strange sensation, lacking a purpose.  He knows that he was asleep – in cryo – when he wasn’t on a mission.  He wonders how long it’s been since he had any kind of free time.  Even downtime on ops was devoted to watching a mark through his scope or otherwise making sure the mission was a success.  Sometimes… he thinks that sometimes a team came with him, and they might engage in leisure activities if they were delayed.  But he never took part.  When the opportunity arose, he usually inspected and cleaned his weaponry instead.

Killing time before completing an assignment (generally involving a less than proverbial killing) was very different from his current situation.  There is nowhere for him to go, nowhere to receive orders and have something to do.  He is completely lost.  If he’s ever experienced something like this before, he has no memory of it.  And the great unknown makes it difficult to keep the panic welling up in his chest at bay.

He walks until dawn.  He passes nowhere he feels safe enough to stop, and he worries that pausing will cause him to lose consciousness.  He’s so tired.  At some point, he stops keeping to alleyways.  There’s no reason to, not now that he’s dressed like a civilian.  Even if he’d rather avoid attention, it’s possible that such obvious attempts at going unnoticed would have the opposite effect anyway.

The city begins to stir and he is no longer alone on the sidewalks.  His right arm hurts and he holds it close to his chest, but worries that someone might brush up against his left and note its unique texture.  No one does and he slowly lets the thought go.  It’s hard to stay focused, with strange images from missions and perhaps more flitting through his head.  None stay long enough for him to learn anything, which is frustrating.  He’d be more upset if he weren’t so tired.

Suddenly – a familiar face in front of him causes him to stop short.  The man – Captain America – is on a poster affixed to a glass structure.  People wait beneath it and he reads that it is a bus stop.  The people ignore him, so he approaches hesitantly until he can see the poster better.

An exhibit at a museum – the Smithsonian.

He’s… he’s been to an exhibit before.  Not that one, though, but something.  Something with – with science.  It was – fun.  He wasn’t alone, wasn’t on a mission.

Blinking, he waits for some other scraps to come, but they don’t.  So he focuses on the poster again, memorizing.  Arrayed behind Captain America are several other people.  It’s a painting, so perhaps his overtired mind is playing tricks, but they seem familiar.  Especially the one to Captain America’s right.

Tentatively, he lifts his right hand to his face and thinks that perhaps that man looks kind of like him.  That could explain why the Captain believes he knows him – maybe he has been mistaken for someone else.  It doesn’t seem likely that HYDRA’s most skilled and anonymous asset would be included in a museum exhibit.

People don’t know who he is.  When he is sent after them, they do not recognize his face – perhaps since he is often masked.  But they recognize his arm and know his reputation. And they are afraid.  They beg for their lives – he’s starting to remember more and more of that – knowing that it is useless.  That there will be no mercy from the Winter Soldier.

So how could his face be in a museum if he is a ghost?

 

It takes time to walk to the Smithsonian.  He stays focused on that, ignoring the other thoughts that flicker.  It may not be the best purpose, but it’s better than nothing.  Around mid-morning, he stops in an alley and searches through the backpack he stole.  He’s very hungry, perhaps more than he is tired.  The food available is the kind that is easy to transport and lasts a long time – not particularly appetizing.  But he doesn’t care.  He sits down and leans against the brick wall to eat, wishing he had a canteen.  Then he keeps walking.

Out of habit, he scouts the museum when he reaches it, assessing its size and layout and looking for escape routes by walking around the whole facility.  Going into a building without checking it out first is unwise.  Even if this one shouldn’t pose much of a threat.  And perhaps he is looking for an excuse to delay going inside.  What if it costs money?  He doesn’t have any of that, he doesn’t think.  Well, maybe in the backpack.  But he doesn’t want to rifle through it now.

He goes to the main entrance and watches people going inside for a while, noting that their bags are searched before they enter.  Not particularly invasively, but he doesn’t like that idea.  So he circles around the buildings until he finds some dumpsters in which he feels somewhat safe about stashing his supplies while he goes inside.  He pauses, staring at the trash, thinking.  Is it worth it?  Would losing what little he has in his possession really be worth it to go in and look at – at strangers on the wall?

Yes.  He wants answers.  They might be here – maybe not, but he won’t pass up the opportunity.

Steeling his resolve, he goes back to the main entrance and stands in line.  There are families, children, all around him.  They bring a lot of memories of people begging on their progeny’s behalf and – fortunately – very few involving young ones being part of his mission.  He was an assassin and children were rarely a danger to his masters.  So at least the blood on his hands isn’t as bad as it could have been.

There is a metal detector inside the doors.  After bags are searched, people pass through it.  Those who set it off are approached by security, who use a handheld device to repeat the process.  None are stopped, as it is usually jewelry or a watch that slows down the line.  But he begins to panic.  What will they do when they see his arm?  Will they call the authorities?  Is he well-known enough for that?  Or will they just turn him away?

“Good afternoon, sir,” an officer says as she moves past him.

“G-good afternoon,” he manages to get out.  She smiles at him and waves him over to her line, making him first.  He doesn’t return her smile, but tries not to glower as he sets his jaw to keep his fear from showing.  She motions for him to walk through the metal detector and – and – he’s through.  Without setting it off. 

“Enjoy the museum,” she calls politely and turns toward the people behind him.

It takes a moment to shake off his disbelief, but he starts walking right away.  Why wasn’t his arm exposed?  He has no idea.  Pressing his hand a little deeper into his pocket to keep it from showing, he makes his way through the museum.

If he were less intent on reaching the Captain America exhibit, he would like exploring this place.  Perhaps he can come back later, he thinks as he stares at the models of planes and space ships on display.  It’s all he can do to keep from looking like a slack-jawed idiot at technology he had no idea existed.

A line up an escalator takes him toward the exhibit, and he reflects on his reaction to what he saw.  There was no shortage of technology being used by his masters – to control him, to freeze him, to give him a left arm, to track targets, to track him, to keep in contact.  So he’s familiar with some things that are perhaps more advanced than what is here, or even what normal civilians have.  But he hasn’t been aware of anything not specifically for a mission in a long time.  Perhaps he can use the information here to give himself some idea of how long he’s been working for his masters, how long it’s been since he had more general knowledge.

But not now.  The room into which he is admitted is large, with murals covering the walls.  Captain America is heavily featured, but the other men from the poster are there, too.  The one who… looks like him shows up almost as often as the Captain.  Slowly, he walks forward, more to keep out of the way of the crowd behind him than anything else.

It’s a lot to take in and his progress is gradual.  Too gradual, as people begin passing him.  He glances at the plaques of information but is in no state to read them.  Instead, his feet take him toward a display at least as tall as he is, with a face on it.

He hasn’t had much occasion to look in a mirror.  But he knows, inherently, that the face he is staring at is his own.


	5. Big Boys Don't Cry, They Don't Ask Why

He doesn’t know how long he stares at that face in shock before he sets his jaw – he’s going to figure out who he used to be.  There is information next to the face, a few paragraphs detailing the man’s life.  James Buchanan Barnes.  That’s what Captain America called him.  And maybe he was just confused after all the blood loss, mistaking him for this former ally.  Except…  Except the image looks so much like him… and he feels drawn to it.

Taking a deep breath, he reads carefully.  It’s not a lot.  Hardly two sentences detail his life before the war.  But it talks about his being captured and tortured by HYDRA.  Is… is that why he’s been working for them ever since?  But – no – it says he was liberated.  By childhood friend, Steve Rogers – Captain America.

His hands clench into fists subconsciously and he keeps reading, committing it to memory.  Marksmanship is listed as one of his skills – that’s certainly true.  But it says he and Captain America took down HYDRA.  It doesn’t explain how he came to be in the hands of the people they were trying to destroy, and why it’s been so long.  They list him as dead, dead for more than half a century.

Is… is he dead?  Was he?  Did HYDRA find him and bring him back to life?  To serve them after devoting his life to destroying them?  Is this all some kind of sick joke?

Falling – it’s cold.  He’s always cold, even now.  But then it was worse.  Flickers of a snowy mountainside flash before his eyes, then people pulling him out of the snow.  His arm…  It hurts.  It’s bloody.  He doesn’t want to look at it.

Shaking his head, he stumbles back a few steps.  A family frowns at him for almost running into them.  He needs to get out of here.  He can’t – he can’t stay.

It takes some effort to keep from bolting, but he manages to turn around and walk swiftly – not fast enough to bring attention – out of the exhibit.  It’s a little easier to breathe when he’s reached the rest of the museum, but he keeps going.  Whatever this is…  He needs to go somewhere quiet to think.

His training takes over once he’s outside – though he shudders to think of which training it was – and he retrieves his backpack before leaving that part of town.  He doesn’t know what he’s looking for until he finds it.  Store fronts are still in use, but the upstairs is abandoned.  He uses the fire escape to get inside and does a thorough scan of the place before settling down in a corner.

He takes a few deep breaths and leans his head back, closing his eyes.  Then, when he’s caught his breath, he pulls his backpack toward him and takes out something he hadn’t expected to want – a notebook.  His fingers are trembling slightly so the first few lines are not particularly legible.  But he writes what he read in the museum, pausing to think about each sentence.  After some of them, he adds brief descriptions of the images that flash through his mind when he considers each one.

Then he starts to write about the mountainside.  Somehow, that brings it back full force and he has to stop to focus on it.  _Snow – something loud – a train.  He’s on – on the outside of it.  Wind is whipping by his face as he holds tight.  There is a – a bar of some kind.  It’s not sturdy.  He looks toward the opening of the train car and sees – sees a man in red, white and blue – Captain America.  Steve._

_Steve is coming to save him, reaching for him.  But it’s too late.  The bar breaks off and he falls, a scream torn from his throat, dissipating in the frozen air.  “Bucky!” Steve cries in anguish when he falls.  He is terrified as he reaches for something, anything.  But that was a bad idea.  His left hand catches on something and it’s not enough.  He hears a sickening crack and loses consciousness from the pain._

_Later… he’s lying in the snow.  It’s cold.  Wet.  Maybe a river or a stream is nearby.  But there is a face looking down at him – a Russian, if his uniform is any indication.  He slips in and out of consciousness as the Russians put him on a sled and take him away.  The sight of his arm – just a stump – makes everything go black again._

_He’s in a lab, on a gurney.  They are – they’re doing things to him.  Things he doesn’t want to think about.  The sound of a bone saw whirring makes his eyes close and then there’s nothing but pain.  Until…  until he has a new arm.  He can feel it, move his fingers.  It’s heavy.  He blinks at it – it’s metal.  There are technicians or doctors – men in lab coats – hovering over him.  Talking about the arm. Talking about him like he’s a – an experiment.  Not a person.  He doesn’t like that._

_Reaching for the closest man, he grabs his throat.  Things are foggy – he doesn’t have a clear plan of escape.  But he wants to hurt someone.  Another man rushes forward with a syringe, which he drives into his chest.  Unconsciousness comes quickly._

_Another man stands over him.  Someone he… he knows somehow.  He’s smiling.  It gives him a sinking feeling.  “Sergeant Barnes, you are to be the new fist of HYDRA,” the man says._

The flashes stop and he struggles to breathe properly.   If things continue to come back like this, he’s already dreading it.  His heartrate eventually slows as he writes it down with as much detail as he can remember.  It’s better like this – being able to do something methodical like getting everything on paper is preferable to being haunted by it.

When he’s finished, he frowns at the page, thinking.  So…  Captain America wasn’t wrong.  He was this Barnes person before.  Before he died.  Then HYDRA found him and made him into this… this thing.  This weapon.  Why did they choose him?  What made him special?  Surely…  Surely there were plenty of other men they took prisoner during the war.  Who were captured and tortured like the museum said he had been before serving with Captain America – with Steve.  Why were none of them made into what he was?

That line of thinking takes him somewhere that perhaps he’d rather not go.  That he doesn’t have enough information to follow anyway.  There were other plaques in the Smithsonian.  He ignored them when he was there, so he needs to go back.  Just maybe… not today.  There are more pressing issues.

He needs to eat.  He can sleep in this place, at least for a while.  The supplies in the backpack might tide him over, but won’t be enough for long.  Especially if he’ll need to go to the museum several times – on several different days.  If each visit produces the same effect, it will take some time to see everything.  And he will need to stay fed and rested so he doesn’t put himself in danger while he’s out there.

People will be looking for him.  HYDRA, certainly.  And others.  He needs to be on his toes at all times, so he isn’t cornered.  They will not expect him to stay in town, so close to his most recent exploits.  That should help a little.  Of course, it is quite a risk to go somewhere with giant pictures of your own face every day and hope not to be recognized.  But… he has to know.

It’s mid-afternoon – early yet – so he leaves his new safe house to go looking for work.  He has no idea what kind of job he might be able to get, especially since he is a dead man.  But there must be something, some way to get food and clothes without resorting to theft.  As he walks around, he tries to think of what he would be good at.  Most of his skills are combat-related and won’t be particularly useful here.

He is attentive to detail, knows several languages – well, Russian, at least – is just great at following orders…  So there should be something he can do.  Of course, with his long hair and unkempt beard, he’s not sure who would want him.  He frowns slightly at the thought, uncertain where it came from.  There was a time that he… that he paid attention to his appearance, he thinks.  Perhaps he will do that again.  But, for now, keeping from being recognized is paramount.

It takes over an hour of walking before he finds it – what he wants to do.  It might be dangerous to be back here, but he doesn’t expect to be recognized.  Not if he’s careful.  And he wants to help make up for what he did.  So he will help the volunteers trying to clean up the Potomac.


	6. I Want to be Back on the Ground

Volunteering doesn’t exactly pay the bills, but he doesn’t need much.  Free meals are offered for those willing to help, and he moves around enough to get a couple of those a day.  He can work far longer than anyone else before he gets tired.  So, even if he is noticed, no one will mind particularly.  The hardest part for him is keeping from showing his real strength – which would undoubtedly attract attention.

Mornings are spent working, with lunch provided.  Then he goes to the museum for a while.  After the first day, that gets easier.  The flashes continue to come and are no less confusing, but he has a better handle on keeping from losing his head.  He reads and learns, and then has vivid dreams at night.  They often wake him, sometimes screaming.  But he doesn’t think about that when it’s not happening.

He goes back home after the museum to write down memories and do some thinking.  Most days, anyway.  Some days he is too much of a coward, and just goes to work instead.  Using his hands is preferable to confronting the nightmares in his head.  Late afternoon and early evening find him at the volunteer site, where he remains until it closes for the night.  Dinner is usually also provided, so he finds that he has all his needs met.

“Home” isn’t the same place he first broke into – he changes locations every couple days.  Some of them are nice, and he has a chance to shower and sleep on a real bed.  Others involve sleeping on the floor while listening to the wind whistle through broken windows.  He feels safer in the latter, and wouldn’t bother with the former if it weren’t necessary to keep some semblance of cleanliness to avoid being noticed.

There is a bit of money in the backpack – he initially feels that it is a huge sum, but soon learns that it won’t go very far.  Against his better judgement, he uses some of the precious resource to obtain more notebooks.  There was only one before and it is getting full.  Writing his memories down gives them some kind of order and makes it easier to untangle the confusing mess they make of his mind.

Missions are harder to keep track of because they are all so similar.  He was awakened, he was given his orders, he was sent out, he killed someone, he came back to the lab.  They attached him to the machine – the one that took his memories away – and then he went into cryo.  Sometimes the machine was after cryo, but the rest of the experience was about the same.  He never knew much about his targets except how to identify them – they told him he was doing great things for his country and his people, but were never specific.  So he has no idea whom he’s killed or why.

A comparatively small portion of what’s come back is of his life during World War II.  It is the part on which he has the most information – the Smithsonian focuses on that time period, as does the news.  When he manages to see any of it and it happens to be talking about Captain America.  Mostly it talks about the disaster with SHIELD – usually immediate effects.  There is something he doesn’t quite understand about a leak, but it is not often explained in much detail.

There seem to be two parts to his wartime experience – one part before Steve was involved, and part after.  The part after is better.  He was with the Howling Commandos.  They were a good lot – and were fun.  Those are the best memories to wake up from – he’s usually smiling.  The part before Steve came was not particularly fun, though a few of the Howlies were his friends then, too.  There was camaraderie in his unit, and there were some good times.  But it doesn’t compare to being in the elite HYDRA-fighting team.

Most of the memories he writes down come from before the war, living in Brooklyn.  They seem like they couldn’t possibly be real, especially looking at how the world is now.  Was that his life once?  Living in a cramped apartment with his family, befriending the neighborhood kid, doing well in school, being an athlete?  Of all the things that have come back, those are the ones he cannot believe.

Perhaps it is just too painful to consider what he lost by going to war.  It was something he felt he should do, even if he mainly did it for Steve.  They signed up together.  Too bad it didn’t work out and Steve was left behind.  And he had been relieved by that, no matter how much it bothered his friend.  He kept it to himself.  But a battlefield was no place for someone like Steve.

Until he went and got himself changed into a super soldier.  It was a reckless thing to do.  He wonders if Steve regrets it now, after everything that’s happened.  If he weren’t a super soldier, he wouldn’t have survived being frozen in the arctic.  He wouldn’t be alive now, dealing with the culture shock of the twenty-first century and the weight of a reputation that was seventy years in the making.

Wow.  The twenty-first century.  He remembers going to pictures that would predict how it would be now.  They were wrong, for the most part.  He’d always found the technological achievements fascinating.  Even now, he enjoys going to the other parts of the museum to see what has been done while he was sleeping the decades away.  Unlike Steve, he was awakened periodically and at least exposed to current technology, sometimes trained to use it, so he’s not completely in the dark.  But it is still a surprise sometimes.

 

Close to a month since the helicarrier incident, much of the debris is cleaned up.  To the point that the volunteer effort is dwindling and more skilled labor is required.  That evening, speeches are made to thank everyone who put in their time, and they are sent home.  He watches the others walking away, glancing back toward the river.  Without this, what will he do to fill his days?  There is little in the museum he hasn’t seen, even if he is still remembering things from seeing familiar faces again.

“Hey, buddy, how ‘bout a drink?” a man near him asks.  He is surprised to realize that he is being addressed.

“I, uh,” he begins uncertainly.

The man, who is 5’9”, two hundred pounds, works with his hands – construction? – looks at him with a smile.  They have worked together before, he thinks.  Several times.  Enough to engender a friendship? 

“Me and the boys were about to, thought you looked like you could use one.”

He is ill-equipped to handle this situation.  Would refusing attract more attention than accepting?  Does he have enough money to go?  What do… what do people drink these days?  “Alright,” he says, realizing he’s thought about it for too long.

That makes the man smile again – it had faded during the pause.  “You need to call your old lady or something?  Get permission?”

The thought makes him smile back.  “Afraid not.”

A grunt is the only reply, and they are joined by three other men, all of about the same height and build.  Likely all manual workers, from the way they carry themselves.  They would pose more of a threat than regular civilians in a fight, but do not exhibit any signs of being specifically trained for that kind of thing.

“Louie, Angelo, Frank, and I’m John,” the man introduces them, and he shakes their hands.  He’s still wearing gloves – they are not.  But he can’t very well take off one and not both, so he hopes they won’t take offense.

“B- James,” he says awkwardly.  People don’t seem to called Bucky anymore, though it was a fairly common nickname when he was young.  But that was close to a century ago, he thinks darkly.  They exchange generic platitudes that he responds to as best he can as they walk over to a bar down the block.

It’s a dark place, and they sit near the televisions.  The news is on, but the men ignore it.  They know each other quite well, it’s clear.  John speaks to him the most, trying to include him, but it’s less than effective.  He’s too afraid of letting anything important slip to be a good drinking buddy.

“So, where you from?” John tries eventually.  “New York?”

“Brooklyn,” he answers, surprised into truthfulness.

John smiles.  “Got a cousin there.  Talks like you.”

Hesitantly, he returns the smile.  Is it really that obvious?  Is that why HYDRA didn’t exactly encourage him to speak?

“So, what do you do when you’re not here, nobly helping us out?”

“I’m… in between jobs,” he offers, grimly amused at the veracity of the statement.

John nods, sympathetic.  “You looking to stay in town?”

He opens his mouth to answer when something catches his attention.  The television.  They are talking about the attack on the Triskelion, showing a blurry picture of him with the caption “Where is the Winter Soldier?”  He stares, trying to determine if his new friends could possibly recognize him from the photograph.

“I, uh…  I’m flexible,” he says slowly, not really remembering the question.

Glancing from him to the television then back again, John nods.  “Can you believe this guy?  I mean, we get invaded by freaking aliens, so I guess a dude with a metal arm isn’t that big a deal,” he adds.

The others chime in to agree, and he feels like he can’t breathe.

“I heard he killed that Fury guy, the head of SHIELD?  Seems like maybe he orchestrated the whole thing,” Angelo is saying.

He focuses on taking a few deep breaths.  Do they… do people really think this was all his fault?  And… if he’s honest with himself – does he disagree?


	7. Where My Feet Touch My Shadow

He offers little to the conversation as they discuss what happened to the Triskelion, the helicarriers, and to SHIELD.  What can he say without giving his own privileged vantage point away?  But he’s very interested to hear what they think of him, what people think of him.  The news has a lot of opinions that he doesn’t quite follow, lacking the background knowledge to piece it together.  But this… this is easier to understand.

As far as he can tell, people never trusted SHIELD.  It was a shadow organization that few knew about, and relief is more common than distress at it being dismantled.  The government officials are shocked and dismayed to find that there was an old WWII cult (is that what they call it now?) undermining the whole thing.  But the regular folks are suspicious that those same officials were in on it – several prominent people have been arrested for conspiracy and espionage.

The secrets that were dumped onto the internet are vast and few have actually looked into them.  Of the men he is drinking with, only one has read any of the entries, and didn’t get very far.  The news, both on television and online, helpfully points out some of the more noteworthy things that were leaked.  But the CIA and the FBI have been trying to plug the leak, leading to more suspicion from regular people.  They haven’t been completely successful, but it’s at least harder to find the information now.

Captain America has been subpoenaed, as has the Black Widow.  Many of SHIELD’s agents have disappeared or gone into other lines of work.  Holding Avengers accountable to the government is a new thing, and the people were generally surprised that Black Widow agreed to meet with them.  She is mysterious and not much trusted – unlike Steve.

But all of that holds little interest for these men at a bar in DC.  What does interest them is the carnage and what caused it.  There were few civilian casualties and the lives lost belonged to SHIELD agents – potentially HYDRA agents, but it’s hard to tell when they’re dead.  Conspiracy theorists suggest that the organization imploded in there, and that HYDRA is just an excuse.  Details are hazy concerning what actually went on in the Triskelion that day, but the Winter Soldier was clearly involved.

Nick Fury was gunned down in the streets – though there are surprisingly few witnesses.  It’s said that cops were chasing him.  So some think he was being arrested and resisted, having turned against the country’s interests, while others think the cops were just a front for enemy agents.  And some think it was just the police overreacting to a fatal degree.

But the cops were not the ones who killed him – it was a masked figure of whom there is little footage.  Enough, though.  Enough to make it seem that this was a professional hit, according to some people.  A figure who looked quite similar was seen attacking Captain America and the Black Widow, some of which was live on the news.  He was seen again on the footage from the Triskelion.

So people know he was involved.  The feds are looking for him, putting him on their most wanted list.  He’s called the Winter Soldier on the news, and a few grainy photographs is all they have to go on.  If they have more information about him, they haven’t released anything.  He wonders how badly they really want him if they’re not willing to share more.  Certainly the SHIELD files that were released would include some HYDRA files, which would reference at least a few of his missions.  Maybe Steve is… is suppressing some of that somehow.

He’s disappointed when the conversation turns to other topics, but he enjoys the company.  It’s been a long time – a very long time – since he’s done something like this.

“Well, the missus is waiting.  I’ll see you boys tomorrow,” John says after a while as he starts to get up.  “Anybody want to share a cab?”

“Sure,” he says, mainly to avoid the awkwardness of figuring out when he should leave.  Frank decides to leave then, too, and the three of them wait outside for a taxi.

“So, we are headed north.  You?”

He clears his throat, suddenly afraid of telling the truth.  “West.  We can, uh, head your way first – I’m a little far.”

If he could duck out of this without attracting unwanted attention, he would.  But they get in the taxi and he sits in the back with John while Frank sits in the front.  He doesn’t like the idea of the driver or either of them having any idea where he lives, even if he won’t be there more than a day or two.

“So, any job prospects?” John asks conversationally.

“Um, no.  It’s, uh, a little difficult,” he answers slowly.

John nods.  “Well, you seem to know what you’re doing out there.  Our crew got hired on to do some of the reconstruction.  I can see if the boss is interested.”

He smiles, relief flooding him.  “That would be great.”

 

It’s a pleasant walk to his place from where he had the cab drop him off.  Money’s low after tonight’s excursions, but he feels pretty good nonetheless.  He might have a job soon, and seems to be fitting in well enough with the crew.  It’s so nice to consider doing something for himself for once.  Maybe he’ll get a real apartment after a while, and set up a life here.

Or maybe…  Maybe he should find Steve.  He’s remembered a lot.  Not everything, he’s sure, but enough to be able to talk to his former best friend.  So that is an option.  The thought fills him with dread, though.  What will… what will Steve think of him?  What will the Avengers think of him?  Steve was willing to throw his life away on a gamble that he’d remember him.  But that’s Steve – he’s always jumping on grenades without thinking things through.

So that should wait.  Until he was more sure of himself.  Steve would accept any weight, any burden, that might help a friend.  No matter how it would affect him, how many burdens he was already carrying.  So, yeah, he should definitely wait.  Until he could be reasonably sure that he wouldn’t wake up screaming every night.

 

It’s not every night.  And it’s not always screaming.  But he is often awakened by his dreams and cannot sleep again for a few hours.  He spends them writing down what he’s remembering, no matter how painful the memories are.  After going out drinking, he dreams about being a Howling Commando, about being part of a team.  It was nice back then.

In the morning, he goes to work, and John tells him he’s welcome to join the crew.  So his days change a little from the familiar shape they were starting to form.  He goes to work early, getting coffee and breakfast burrito with the guys, breaking for lunch – when he goes to the museum briefly – then working until dinner.  Sometimes they go out for drinks or a meal together, sometimes he’s on his own.  But he gets paid in cash every day, so he has a lot more freedom to do what he wants.

After a month, he no longer goes to the museum.  There’s nothing new to gain from it, and it’s uncomfortable to see his old face every day.  That’s not who he is anymore.  A part of him wants to just hide here, to become this construction worker full-time, to get an apartment and set up his life.  But that wouldn’t be fair to Steve.  So he decides it’s time to move on.

He tells John that he’s going to go home, to Brooklyn.  His voice doesn’t shake when he says it, and he doesn’t fidget with his left hand.  He’s calm, collected.  John tells him how to look up his cousin, the one who lives there and can probably offer him a job.  He says goodbye to the guys and won’t look back.  He wants to find out who he is.  And then… then he’ll go see Steve.

After packing up his meager belongings, he starts walking out of the city.  He finds a railyard and waits for a while, watching the trains.  The memory of how he died came back early, and he is uncomfortable with the idea of getting on another train.  But this one won’t go into the cold mountains, and he won’t get shot at.  He won’t fall and fall and –

It will be fine.  He will just sleep on a car and it will take him home.  Home to Brooklyn.  Where he hasn’t been since before he went to war.  Where he’s been trying to get back to for over seventy years.  And now he’s finally going to do it.  To go home.

He picks a train heading north and walks along it until he finds a car that isn’t shut all the way.  Pulling open the door, he hops inside and closes it behind him.  Now… to wait.


	8. Anything to Stop Floating 'Round

Brooklyn, New York City, New York.  He stands in front of a building that has replaced the apartment where he’d grown up.  It shouldn’t have been such a shock to see how things have changed, but it is.  A few blocks away is where he met Steve, where Steve lived with his parents – Sarah and – and – Joseph, that’s it.  Wait, no, Joseph had died a long time ago.  Well, before Steve could remember him – all his memories are from a long time ago.  Without a father or even older brother, Steve had struggled.  Bucky had been his older brother, and his family had welcomed the boy as one of their own.

Separating was harder on Steve than on Bucky – he’d always been able to make friends and get along in new situations.  The intensity with which Steve approached life could be off-putting to new people.  They didn’t see the unmoving morality for the gift that it was.  Well, maybe Steve doesn’t have that problem anymore – anyone who recognizes Captain America would know that about him.

He doesn’t stay long here, though not because he fears being recognized.  Anyone who knew him before is likely long dead.  They won’t expect him to still be a man in his twenties, at any rate.  There is the slight danger that he might recognized as the Winter Soldier, but he doesn’t give that much credence.  The photos they have of him are not much to go on.

He leaves because he is afraid.  Because he can feel the ghosts of who he used to know, who he used to be, being thrown into sharp relief.  Because he can’t go back to his old life, the only pleasant thing he’s known, so what’s the point in being here?  Because memories are not reality and bringing them back has only one purpose.

When things blow over, when the news no longer mentions the Triskelion every few days, then he’ll go find Steve.  He knows where he is – the Avengers are in upstate New York.  He’s certain he can locate the facility.  Getting in might be another story, but surely… surely Steve will want to see him?  He’ll want to know he’s okay, that he’s no longer HYDRA’s property.  What will happen after that, he hasn’t dared to consider.

What will Steve’s friends think of him?  He is all too aware of what is generally thought of him.  Well, of the Winter Soldier.  Though he also knows Bucky Barnes’ reputation.  How would people react if they knew they were one and the same?  He doesn’t want to find out.

He walks slowly in the gathering dark of evening, revisiting old haunts.  Some look like they used to, but most have been knocked down or remodeled past recognition.  He only knows them because he remembers how long it took to get places.  As he walks, he thinks – about his youth here, about the war he died during, about the war he was still involved in until mere months ago, about the future.  If he has a choice… What does he want?  It’s been so long since he’s made any choices for himself – if he ever did.  How would his life be different if he hadn’t followed his father’s example and gone with Steve to sign up for service?

He would be dead by now, more than likely.  What would have filled his years?  Would he have a family – a pretty wife and a few children, then grandchildren?  What would he have done for a living?  Would he have gone to school to pursue his love of science?  Would he have continued working at the plant to pay for it, and then gotten some kind of job in that field?  Would he have spent his time in a lab where the experiment wasn’t him?

It doesn’t matter.  The subject has little interest for him now.  He has perfected his combat skills over a lifetime and lost none of his edge.  But there’s no place for that in the real world.  So what then?  Is he going to join the Avengers and put his skills to good use that way?  It’s… the only thing he can think of.  Not yet, though.  Not until he can offer a real person.  Not until he knows who he is.

Bucky Barnes is dead.  He fell off a train seventy years ago.  The Winter Soldier is dead.  He fell into the Potomac and never climbed out.  So who did?  Who pulled Steve Rogers out of the water but didn’t stick around to be taken in with him?  Who went daily to see a museum exhibit on Bucky Barnes’ old life but would never see that person as himself?  Who watched all the news segments he could on the Winter Soldier but would never return to that line of work?  Who was he?

 

He has money now – enough for a place.  It’s cramped and dirty, but he feels great.  The landlord is suspicious of him, with good reason.  But as long as he can keep paying, he can stay here.  It’s not the kind of place that asks questions about its tenants, and people tend not to notice anything.  Others would see that as a danger but he is relieved.  There really aren’t any threats that can affect him these days.

After he settles in, splurging to buy himself a new sort of couch that contains a bed in it (innovative, but less effective than hoped), he goes to find John’s cousin.  Robert Talich, part owner of a construction company uncreatively called Talich’s Construction.  It’s easy to find.  Robert is not that much like his cousin, but willing to employ a hard worker with the right recommendation.  He tells him to come back in the morning and prove himself.

He spends his evening walking around town, taking in the sights.  Things sure have changed.  He doesn’t think he was ever sent here on a mission – though he often wasn’t all that aware of his geographical location.  So he’s seen a lot of modern cities but not this one – not the only one that would have mattered to him.

Robert is pleased the next morning when he shows what he can do.  He doesn’t have any particular skills, but he can lift more than the average person of his build (significantly more, but he doesn’t share that) and has an eye for precision.  It’s still a relief to get the job, since he’s not sure what he’d do without it.

So he has a job and an apartment.  He makes his own meals and enjoys being able to have something fresh and homemade, instead of the glorified MREs he’s been eating since – what, 1943?  Bucky could cook to an extent, the Winter Soldier not at all.  He improves upon both by trying new things whenever he gets the chance.

There is a library near his apartment and he spends a great deal of time there.  Catching up.  He prefers actual books to the internet – they feel more reliable. But he does try to stay aware of current events, and online resources are best for that.  He watches the footage of when the Black Widow was questioned a few months ago, since he hadn’t been able to at the time and it feels important.  No one has heard anything about her or Steve since then.  Rumors are flying, but he figures they are doing their jobs from the shadows, where it’s safer after what happened.

Months pass and his routine has a comfortable pattern.  He works all day, cooks and reads in the evenings, and sleeps pretty well.  When he dreams of something new, he writes it down in the notebooks he keeps.  It’s a nice life, for now.

As peaceful as it is, he is well aware of the danger that might come.  His chosen apartment is in the corner, with an awkward door that has a short wall right in front of it.  The door can open all the way, but then one must turn to the right to enter the living space.  The new couch fits well between the door and the wall and could be used to block the entrance fairly effectively.  There is a fire escape that has seen better days – no one would use it to climb to his apartment (on the fifth floor), but he can use it to escape.  He’s able to fall pretty far without getting hurt, even if he really hates heights.

He wears gloves all the time.  Construction is a good job for him, since they are generally required.  No one has commented on his wearing them after hours, and he has other kinds of gloves for when he goes to the library.  They are thinner and provide more dexterity.  He wears a cap most of the time, and his long hair and beard hide his face.  It’s winter and he wears a lot of layers to drive away the cold – which helps obscure himself as well.  He’s rarely worried about anyone running into his left arm and noticing it’s not quite right.

The memories that plagued him are rare now.  He thinks it’s all come back, or at least the majority.  Anything that wasn’t buried too deep.  The time he saw Steve on the highway is still hazy and he thinks they might have made an extra effort to erase it.  Older memories that got the same treatment probably haven’t resurfaced.  He wonders what they might entail, if there’s anything left.  But it’s not something he pursues any longer.

It’s been nearly a year and they say HYDRA is gone.  He doubts that, but hopes that those who were in the position to hurt him are no longer able to do so.  Rumor is that the Avengers are taking down remaining cells of the organization – looking for something.  He doesn’t know what, but he thinks that maybe… maybe it’s time.  Time to let himself be found.


	9. Hey, Now, What's the Gravity Upon Your Face?

About once a week, the guys he worked with would go to a bar.  It was always the same one.  It was sloppy of him to follow suit.  It was probably sloppy to have come to Brooklyn in the first place.  But he didn’t remember at the time that he had been sent there once before in the last seventy years.  The reason he hadn’t remembered was because they buried it deep – he could only imagine how many times they’d punished him after that.

He’d been sent to kill someone, as usual.  New York City would seem like a good place for finding high profile targets, but it was the only time he was given orders to go there.  They knew who he was – didn’t they?  They must have.  At some point.  He remembered the scientist – Zola – calling him by name in the beginning.  So it was foolish of them to let him return to his old home.  As foolish as it was for Pierce to send him repeatedly after Steve Rogers, especially after it broke his programming a bit when he was called Bucky for the first time since 1944 (most of that mission was still hazy, but he remembered that part).

In any case, he’d finished the job as expected, but failed to make the rendezvous with his handlers.  It took them a few months to track him down then, and he’d been punished.  They’d questioned him repeatedly, using various methods of loosening his tongue, and he’d had no answer for them.  He couldn’t remember, at the time, why it was important to stay there in Brooklyn.  But it had been, and he had assumed that it was part of the mission in some way.  Some underlying programming, maybe.  He hadn’t thought…  He hadn’t thought there was a previous connection to the place that he’d forgotten.

So, with the knowledge of those events, perhaps it would have been wise to have copied his HYDRA handlers and gotten out of the country.  He shouldn’t have let himself think he had a life here, that he was improving and figuring out who he was.  He should have followed his instincts and run.

It was a night like any other, and he was drinking with his new friends.  Alcohol had little effect on him these days – he remembered Steve having that same problem – but he enjoyed the company.  And could fake it enough to fit in.  He should have noticed earlier that the usual clientele had been joined by an inordinate number of large men – not just folks who worked with their hands for a living.  The kind that knew how to handle themselves in a fight.  The kind that HYDRA hoped could bring him down.

They were wrong, of course.  He was sitting next to a friend of his, Ed, when one of the larger men sat down next to him, awkwardly close.  It set off alarm bells immediately, especially since the stranger was on his left side and he was always concerned about people getting too close to his arm.

“You’re off the job, kid, you can take your gloves off,” the man told him, which made Ed laugh.  He’d smiled slightly and said something about maybe still needing them.  “Why, you got a reason to hide your hands?” was the cold response.  Then he knew.  The other people in the room whom he’d noticed but not registered when he came in became painfully obvious and he cursed himself for letting his guard down.

He stood up, moving away from his friends and keeping tabs on the men who were out of place in the room.  One by one, they stood as well, moving for the door.  So he’d done what he had to do.  He kept his gloves on, so he wouldn’t be too obvious.  One man taking down an entire bar would be news, but didn’t have to be about the Winter Soldier if he didn’t show his most distinctive feature.

And it was easy.  After almost a year without fighting anyone, he would have thought he’d be rusty.  And maybe he had, a little.  But not enough for these thugs to be much of a threat.  Even if there were a dozenof them and only one of him.  His friends attempted to help, but were not trained for this.  So he tried to keep his assailants away from them by taking them all on himself.  It might have been more of a challenge than he’d had in quite some time, but took only a few minutes before he was the last one standing.

“Who are you?” Ed breathed, standing in the tight knot of onlookers, all of whom had large eyes and shocked expressions.

He’d just smiled sadly.  “I wish I knew,” he replied, and ducked out.  There were sirens approaching, but he evaded them by following back alleys.  He knew the area like the back of his hand.  A quick stop by his apartment to grab his bug-out bag and give the place a quick once over, then he was on his way to the airport.  In his time in Brooklyn, he’d managed to get some fake papers with an alias (James Smith), so he was able to leave the country right away.

On the plane, he reflected on his day.  It had been a pleasant enough morning and afternoon – he’d slept well for once and done a good job on the site.  And hanging out after work with his friends was a bonus.  He wondered what they’d think of him now.  What guesses they’d make about him, if any of those guesses would get close to the truth.  He doubted it.  The Winter Soldier was a ghost.  After a year of searching, no one expected him to be found.

 

The Avengers weren’t in New York.  It was just a base of operations, the tower.  So he might have been able to find Steve there, but it would mean waiting and trusting whoever answered the door not to turn him in.  They had mopped up HYDRA in the States for a while before going over to Europe to lend a hand.  Possibly searching for something.

He didn’t know about that.  What he did know was that they were last seen in Eastern Europe.  So he figured he might as well start there.  It might be easier meeting up with Steve in the field anyway, particularly if he could help right away and prove his value.  Not to Steve, of course – but the others might need a reason to take in a dangerous fugitive who was on the most wanted lists of intelligence agencies all over the world.

The trip took a few days, not only because of the flight times but because he was wary of being followed.  So he booked a few short flights that did some doubling back before finally arriving in Bucharest, Romania.  He was tired.  The thought of running into Steve now was too much to consider, so he got a hotel room near the airport.  It might not have been safe, but he slept deeply for a long time.  And dreamed of something he wished had stayed forgotten.

 

Colonel Vasily Karpov had been his handler for a while, and found his loyalty wanting – it was under him that he’d gone off the grid in Brooklyn.  So the Colonel had set a few phrases that made him unable to do anything other than commanded.  It ensured his obedience and those memories had taken a long time to return.  Most were the same as his other missions – just assassinations with a failsafe to keep him from escaping again.  But one…

On a lone highway in Long Island, he’d waited for a car.  Karpov was testing him, seeing if he could handle missions in the United States again.  And he’d passed the test.  He’d followed the car when it came, slashing its tires so it ran into a tree.  It wasn’t enough to kill the occupants, so he’d gone to do it himself.  Perhaps because Howard hadn’t been that close of a friend, or because of the phrases Karpov had used on him, but he hadn’t reacted to being called Sergeant Barnes by a familiar face.

There were more violent memories of his missions, but that one hurt the most.  It was painful to think of Howard seeing him, knowing who he was and being confused by his presence.  It was worse to think that Karpov had sent him there, the perfect test – near his old home and killing an old friend.  Worse still was how effective he had been, completely focused on his mission.

But he’d killed them.  With his bare hands, not even having the comforting distance of a rifle to assuage his guilt.  A man he’d once worked closely with and he’d beaten him to death.  Like he almost had with Steve.  Like he could do to anyone without warning if the right words were spoken.  He laid awake in the dark, thinking that he had no right to go to Steve.  Because Steve was serving with Tony Stark now.  And how could he show his face in front of someone he’d orphaned?

 

He did manage to sleep again, and, when he woke up, he turned on the news.  And was shocked by what he saw.  The capitol of Sokovia was – was flying.  The Avengers were there, though it was unclear how involved they were in what was happening.  A lot of theories were put forth as well as a discussion of previous reports by the newscasters, as everyone watched the floating city with baited breath.

There were other Avengers sightings recently, in South Korea and in South Africa.  Upsettingly, the Hulk had been unleashed in Johannesburg.  People died.  Iron Man showed up to stop him and was eventually successful, after a lot of property damage and some more lives lost.  The people of South Africa were not pleased.  South Korea had been less disastrous, though a train had been derailed.  Reports are mixed, but the prevailing idea was that the Avengers saved some lives there.

Complaints about the Avengers’ presence causing more destruction than assistance were growing louder, and it gave him a sinking feeling.  He didn’t dwell on it, but watched in silent horror as the city rose higher and higher.  The news went back over all they knew about the situation – which wasn’t much – and warned viewers that what happened next might not be suitable for children.

The Avengers were helping, though.  They were getting everyone off the city.  A SHIELD helicarrier showed up out of nowhere – which surprised the newscasters more than it surprised him – to ferry civilians.  He knew that HYDRA was not gone and hadn’t really expected SHIELD to be, either.  Both were organizations that lived in the shadows.  So being sure of destroying them was almost impossible.

When he saw Steve on the footage from someone’s cell phone, his relief was palpable.  Not that he’d really thought anything would happen to him, but this wasn’t their world anymore.  There were a lot crazier things than a 90-pound asthmatic being transformed into a super soldier these days.

Finally – it was over.  Novi Grad plunged relatively harmlessly into a lake, and all civilians were believed to have been rescued.  But it was far more destruction than had been seen before, and many lives were lost in the course of events, regardless of the Avengers’ mitigation.  Still, things were celebratory for a while.

Until people came on to suggest that this had all been Tony Stark’s fault.  That he’d created the monster that tried to destroy the world.  That the Avengers consistently made things worse.  There were even rumblings of some kind of laws to bind superhumans, to hold them accountable for their actions.

He sat watching, silently, long into the night.  The idea that was niggling at the back of his mind, that he’d been trying to ignore for the last year, would not be silent.  And he finally gave in and listened.  As the news covered both this event and brought up the one from a year ago, it became more and more clear.  The Winter Soldier was an agent of chaos, and his association with the Avengers would just be another nail in the coffin of public distrust.

And Tony Stark had enough to deal with without having to meet up with his parents’ killer.  So, as much as he wanted to see Steve…  It wasn’t the place or the time.


	10. So I'm the One Who's Bleeding

It took longer to get settled in Bucharest than it had in Brooklyn.  He had a lot of cash, but most of the people he was seeing didn’t take American currency.  He also didn’t have contacts to get his foot in the door.  But he managed eventually.  A small apartment that fit his specifications could be rented with what he had, and he was able to get some work.  It was a godsend that he was fluent in the language – he hadn’t been sure he would be.  But it came as easily as anything else and made it much easier to deal with the locals.

After a while, he began making the apartment feel more like a home.  He got some furniture and no longer had to sleep on the floor.  The kitchen wasn’t well stocked, but it was good enough to make what he wanted with fresh food when he got the chance.  The hours he worked weren’t overly oppressive, and his nightmares were less common.  Though they had come back with a vengeance after HYDRA found him and he’d remembered what he’d done to Howard.

He remembered now being in Brooklyn before, when he was the Soldier.  He remembered the attack on the highway when he was sent to stop Steve and Black Widow.  There had been a third man with him – he’d had wings.  And kicked him in the head.  Of course, he’d gotten back at him for that, kicking him off the helicarrier.  Now he was fascinated by the technological marvel of the wings and wondered what other things were possible these days.

Research was no longer a priority, since he figured he’d remembered everything important.  Or at least anything that would have been put into reports.  His notebooks were in the bug-out bag he hid under the floorboards and he didn’t often add to them.  He had picked a corner apartment and a table that could be used to block the door pretty well.  The hallways were narrow enough to effectively bottleneck any assailants and he felt relatively safe.  As safe as he could reasonable expect anyway.

 

His life was peaceful now, though he was always looking over his shoulder.  He couldn’t let HYDRA get him, or anyone else who might know the phrases.  Karpov was not dead.  HYDRA believed him to be – it’s why he had gone over to American handlers after what happened to his Russian master.  The words had not gone with him to the States, which was a blessing – he would never have remembered Steve if they had been in effect.  But Karpov was still out there, he was sure.  Biding his time.

So it was something of a surprise when he was caught for different reasons.  The day started like any other, going to work and then to the market on the way home.  He picked out some plumbs, considering what to do with them for dinner.  But then a lot of sirens began to sound.  They came from the opposite direction of the police station and roused his suspicion.  It was confirmed when unfamiliar orange and white vehicles – not Romanian forces – sped past him.  Going toward – home.

Warily, he looked across the street at a newspaper vendor.  Who caught sight of him and ran off.  He wouldn’t make a scene, wouldn’t do anything to attract more attention, so he calmly walked over and picked up the newspaper.  “Winter Soldier Bombs UN in Vienna,” it stated.  There was a photo.  It looked like him.  He had a moment of panic – had he done this?  Had someone… had someone used the words and made him forget, making him go about his routine afterward?

No…  No, he didn’t think that’s what happened.  He’d been framed, but not manipulated.  Not yet.  Scanning around him, he set his jaw and knew what to do.  He’d prepared for this.  But he couldn’t run from here, from this market.  He had to get home, to get his bag.  If he hurried, he would beat them.  Some kind of special forces team would be deployed to bring him down, or maybe in, but probably down.  They would try to clear the area of civilians.  It would take time.  Time he could use to escape.  And even if they caught him at home…  Well, he’d picked that apartment for a reason.

He took back alleys to get to his apartment quickly – the sirens weren’t there yet.  The cars and vans along the road had been there that morning.  They were not the kind the police or SWAT teams would use undercover.  There was no one tailing him.  So he slipped inside and went to the window in his living room, listening to see how close they were.

But then his door opened.  He hid to maintain the element of surprise.  A single pair of boots walked into the room, slowly, carefully.  The person was heavy and what must be a tac suit creaked as he moved toward the kitchen.  Slowly, he got to his feet and experienced a flood of emotions at the sight of Steve Rogers – dressed in full gear but gingerly looking at one of his notebooks.  What did Steve expect to find here?

“Understood,” Steve said to someone on comms.  Then he noticed Bucky.  He turned around but didn’t lift his shield, didn’t prepare to attack or defend himself.  “Do you know me?” he asked, voice devoid of emotion. 

“You’re Steve.  I read about you in a museum.”  It was the truth – and the presence of his pamphlet from the Smithsonian in his notebook had already been seen.

Steve’s comm spoke again, but he didn’t respond to it.  “I know you’re nervous,” he told Bucky as he put the notebook gently on the counter.  His tone was authoritative – taking refuge in his Captain America persona.  Bucky wished he could do the same, but the Winter Soldier didn’t exactly have a personality.

“You have plenty of reason to be,” Steve continued.  “But you’re lying.”

“I wasn’t in Vienna.  I don’t do that anymore,” Bucky replied, dodging the implicit question.  If anyone could help him…  No, that would open up a can of worms.  He needed to get out of here, even if it meant running from Steve.

“Well, the people who think you did are coming here now and they’re not planning on taking you alive.”  Steve was angry, though not really at him.  At the situation, maybe.

“That’s smart.  Good strategy,” he answered grimly.  It wouldn’t work, but it was as good a plan as any.

Steve didn’t like that kind of talk.  “This doesn’t have to end in a fight, Buck.”

“It always ends in a fight,” he told his former friend.  He should understand that by now.

Steve’s comm was buzzing again, and he glanced toward the window – as though he could see anything there.  “You pulled me from the river.  Why?” Steve tried again, a little more desperate this time.  The special forces must be close.

Bucky pulled off his glove so his left hand could be free to do whatever he needed to do with it, then looked up.  “I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do.”

He clenched his jaw and who knew how long they would have stared each other down, each willing for the other to make a move, before a flash grenade crashed through the window.  Then things moved very quickly.  Steve was willing to help him, that was clear, and he used the security measures he had in place to limit the attack.  The table fit perfectly, the mattress thick enough to protect him.  Not as well as Steve’s shield, but he’d never imagined that would be an option.

Then it was the fight.  Like there always was.  Like he’d never managed to escape.  And Steve lent a hand, but he couldn’t stay here.  He got his bug-out bag, telling Steve that he had no intention of killing anyone.  Then he used his left hand – and Steve – to block bullets.  There were a lot of them.  They were highly trained.  But they were no match for him, especially with Captain America involved.

His apartment was too high.  He had tried to get one a few floors below initially, but at least he had the advantage of higher ground.  Getting downstairs was much easier than if he’d been trying to climb.  So he made his way down, earning a look of displeasure from Steve when he knocked a man into the stairwell.  Steve caught him because Steve was one of the good guys.  He wasn’t.

He jumped.  And goddamn did it hurt when he caught himself – the metal of his arm strained against his flesh and he cried out.  But then he climbed up and headed out the door, jumping from the balcony onto the rooftop of the next building.  It would take some time for the German (?) special forces to regroup and come after him.  His landing was sloppy, but he grabbed his bag and started to run.

Until he saw a shadow coming at him and had only a moment to duck before a heavy figure knocked him down.  He rolled and stared in shock at a man dressed in black, wearing a mask.  What the hell?

His questions could wait.  The other man was fast and his claws cut through anything.  He was losing.  He might not survive this – maybe Steve would show up to help.  Instead, gunfire came from somewhere – a helicopter? – and distracted his assailant long enough for him to put some distance between them.  He jumped down the building, aware of how close behind the man in black was, and started running as fast as he could.

Perhaps it shouldn’t have been a surprise to find that the other man could keep up with him, if not overtake him.  But there weren’t many options, so he kept running, until he leapt off an overpass and into traffic.  Maybe that would slow him down.  If Steve was following, he had no idea.  But running wasn’t going to save his ass.  There – an oncoming motorcycle.  Easier to hijack than a car.  He grabbed the handle with his left hand, swinging it around, out from under its rider and hopped on.  Then took off.

This was easier.  But the man in black jumped off a car and right at him – he caught him automatically with his right hand.  It was like holding a tornado.  The other man knocked them over so he was skidding along on his left hand until he could kick him off.  Then he straightened, fumbling for a grenade.  He tossed it at the end of the tunnel and it went off right behind him.  The intent was to effectively block his pursuers.  It didn’t work.

The man who was chasing him somehow caught up and slashed his back tire, sending them both rolling.  He was vaguely aware of the sound of an SUV barreling across the rubble, but was more focused on the other man jumping on him.  Until, out of nowhere, Steve showed up and yanked the guy off.

They both stood and he would have run, but that’s when everyone involved in the chase finally got there.  Including a man in a metal suit – War Machine?  The Iron Patriot?  He wasn’t sure what he was called these days, but knew he was Tony Stark’s friend.  He was clearly angry about what Steve had done, calling him a criminal, and Bucky reflected bitterly that this was why he hadn’t wanted to be found.


	11. Real Men, Always Thinking With Our Fists

Trapped.

He was trapped.

An electric current went through his left arm to keep it from ripping through his bonds.  He was in a box and clamped down to a chair as thoroughly as he ever was with HYDRA.  So much for the good guys.

Steve might rescue him again.  But he wasn’t going to hold his breath.  He was aware that Steve saved his life from the man in black – who was royalty of some kind? – and kept the special forces from killing him.  And now Steve was a criminal.  So it seemed unlikely that he should hope for any other gestures from his once best friend.

He was resigned as they took him away.  Steve met his gaze, trying to be reassuring, but he didn’t respond.  They thought he’d planted a bomb in the UN.  It was worse than anything the Winter Soldier had done before.  It was enough to make the whole world look for him.  And they’d found him.  So what would they do with him?

Lock him away, more than likely.  It wasn’t ideal, but he couldn’t say it wasn’t for the best.  Even if he was innocent of this crime, there were plenty more to choose from if they wanted a reason to put him away.  Steve might argue about whether it was what he deserved, but he’d seen all the faces.  All the blood and screaming and dying.  For seventy years, that was all he knew.  So maybe this was the best place for him.  Maybe it was the only place he’d be safe from HYDRA.

He was taken down to a subbasement and plugged into the wall of a large room containing only his cell and a table and chair.  Not long after, a man came to question him.  He wasn’t physically imposing, but carried himself with a sense of assurance that seemed a bit out of place.  There were any number of reasons for that, though, so he didn’t think anything of it.

“Hello, Mr. Barnes.  I’ve been sent by the United Nations to evaluate you.  Do you mind if I sit?” the doctor asked with a slight accent.  He paused politely after each sentence, waiting for a reply that did not come.

He was aware that they were watching this – any number of people would be gathered around monitors, listening in to what the Winter Soldier might have to say for himself.

“I’m not here to judge you.  I just want to ask you a few questions.”

He doubted that.

“Do you know where you are, James?  I can’t help you if you don’t talk to me, James.”

That was a fast change.  Most interrogators didn’t resort a line of questioning that sounded like writing the other person off until later in the process.  When someone was nonresponsive for a while.  It was… suspicious.  But what could he do about it?

“My name is Bucky,” he answered tiredly.  Because he didn’t want to make this worse for Steve, if he could avoid it, so he could at least answer.  And Steve would… would want to hear that he knew his name.

The other man wrote something down.  “Tell me, Bucky.  You’ve seen a great deal, haven’t you?”

“I don’t want to talk about,” he replied, staring intently at his interrogator for the first time.

“Do you feel that, uh, if you open your mouth, the horrors might never stop?”  He wasn’t looking at him, he was looking at a tablet.  Its light reflected on his face, reflected a look of victory.  “Don’t worry.  We only have to talk about one.”

The power went out suddenly, and red emergency lighting was all that remained.  The electricity stopped going through his arm.  “What the hell is this?” he asked warily.

“Why don’t we discuss your home.  Not Romania, certainly not Brooklyn.  No, I mean your real home,” the doctor continued, pulling off his glasses and pulling out a small red book with a black star.  “Longing,” he said in Russian.

“No,” he murmured, as all his worst fears came crashing in on him.  The words kept coming as he screamed and wrenched his left arm free of his restraints, as he ripped through the rest of his bonds, as he punched the door down.  He was successful – now if only he can –

 

His head ached.  He was – was sitting on something.  But his arm was up, away from him.  Confused, he looked over and saw that it was stuck in a hydraulic press.  He could still move it, but it wasn’t going anywhere.  His other hand grabbed unsteadily at the machinery, trying to understand how he’d gotten here.

“Hey, Cap,” a voice said – a voice he knew?  Maybe.  A man entered the room with Steve following soon after.  They were in some kind of warehouse.  The man was… Sam.  The Falcon.  New Avenger.

“Steve.”  His tone was relieved and he almost smiled.

Steve did not return the expression.  “Which Bucky am I talking to?”

That explained a lot.  “Your mom’s name is Sarah.  You used to wear newspapers in your shoes,” he added with something like a laugh as he thought about little Stevie Rogers.

“Can’t read that in a museum,” Steve answered, sounding more like himself and less like Captain America.

“Just like that we’re supposed to be cool?” Sam wanted to know.

It was understandable that the other Avenger wouldn’t be too fond of Bucky after their last encounter, but he remembered – the doctor.  He’d spoken the words.  And then he couldn’t remember anything.  “What did I do?”

“Enough,” Steve said shortly.

“I know this would happen.  Everything HYDRA put inside me is still there.  All he had to do is say the goddamned words,” he muttered to himself, wincing.  It was why he’d been hiding for the last year.  The doctor – he’d had the book.  How had he gotten it?  What happened to Karpov?  He realized Steve was asking him something about what happened.  “I don’t know,” he answered helplessly.

Steve frowned slightly.  “People are dead.  The bombing, the set-up – the doctor did all that just to get ten minutes with you.  I need you to do better than I don’t know,” he said firmly.

He focused on the missing time.  He was… in a helicopter.  Grabbing Steve, trying to stop him or kill him.  Before that… he’d fought the man in black again, though he hadn’t been wearing his suit that time.  He was good.  Might have gotten the upper hand.  Before that – there was a woman with red hair.  She was looking at him like – like –

Focus.  The doctor.  He’d had the book.  He’d asked about – something.  His real home.

“He wanted to know about Siberia.  Where I was kept.  He wanted to know exactly where,” he answered at last, frowning in concentration.

“Why would he need to know that?” Steve asked.

It was sort of nice, seeing mission-focused Captain America again.  It had always been comforting, following him into battle.  He was a good tactician, a good leader.  He wasn’t going to like where this was going.  “Because I’m not the only Winter Soldier.”

They lifted the hydraulic press but kept their distance while he leaned against it.  He told them what he could remember – about getting the serum from the back of a car (he wasn’t going to say whose – not yet, maybe not ever), about being tested against them, about losing and having to lock them up before they were put in cryo for being unstable.  Department X’s solution for all unstable operatives.

“Who were they?” Steve asked.  Perhaps thinking of his own experiences with becoming a super soldier.

“Their most elite death squad.  More kills than anyone in HYDRA history.  And that was before the serum.”

“They all turn out like you?” Sam wanted to know.

It wasn’t polite, but he appreciated that Sam was as focused on the problem as Steve was.  And apparently willing to let go their previous interactions for now.  “Worse,” he answered honestly.

“The doctor, can he control them?”

“Enough,” he told Steve shortly, echoing what Steve had said earlier.  The others weren’t as tractable as he was, they didn’t have the phrases.  But he doubted the doctor would have come this far without a plan about that.

Sam walked over to confer quietly with Steve.  He could hear some of what they were saying, something about Tony and the Accords, but he didn’t care.  Wringing his hands, he closed his eyes and wished he could have just been left alone, safe in Romania.  How did the doctor know who he was?  Why was he doing this?  If all he wanted were the Winter Soldiers, why had he left the one he had control of to break out of custody on his own?

More importantly, if it came down to it – could he go to Siberia again, to where he was kept for decades, to stop him?

 

Steve and Sam made plans and they head outside to a little Volkswagen Beetle.  Sam gave him a look when he paused, so he squeezed into the back and let Sam sit in the front seat.  Steve drove them to an underpass, where another car came along after a while and stopped in front of them.  It was something of a surprise when a pretty blond climbed out.  Maybe it shouldn’t have been.  Steve had been awake and himself for years, without any deprogramming to consider.  So it wouldn’t be unreasonable for him to have a lady friend.

She walked around her car while Steve went to meet her, and to get whatever she had in her trunk.  While they were busy, he turned his attention to Sam, who was watching with inordinate intensity.  Perhaps just trying to ignore the unwanted guest in the backseat.

“Can you move your seat up?” he asked, tired of being cramped in small spaces.

“No,” was the implacable response.  Not afraid to be left alone with him, not worried about his feelings.  It was a more normal reaction than he would have expected from someone who knew anything about him.  He thought he might like Sam.  So he moved over to the seat behind Steve’s instead.

Whatever Steve and his friend were discussing, they were both delaying wrapping it up.  He wondered if Steve would pick up on it.  Surprisingly, he did – leaning in for what was clearly a welcome kiss.  She smiled after, saying something, and Steve glanced back at the car.  He smiled approvingly – glad to see he was finally willing to go after something he wanted.  Then Steve returned to the car and they headed off to plan how to save the world.  Hero stuff.


	12. My Turn to Be the Victim

He had been in a lot of fights, both before he worked for HYDRA and during.  But none of them were anything like this.  His opponents included two men in mechanical suits and they were hardly out of the ordinary here.  There was a – an android?  Or something?  One of the guys on his team could shrink.  And the kid in red and blue spandex who could climb walls and had incredible strength for such a small person.  Not to mention the woman on their team who was just magic apparently – even all the science fiction he read when he was younger couldn’t prepare him for this reality.

The Avengers included a god and he knew that, but knowing it and actually dealing with even their less powerful members were completely different things.  He supposed it was fortunate that he was mainly fighting the man in black – the King of Wakanda, he’d learned.  As though that explained anything.  At any rate, he could handle fighting under those circumstances, even if he wasn’t really winning at any point.

It had not been the plan to fight, of course.  They had come to the airport to meet the recruits Steve could find and intended to go to stop the doctor from waking the other soldiers.  Or, more likely, stop the Soldiers themselves.  There was little time for pleasantries, so he didn’t know too much about their allies who were not Avengers.  Especially as an alarm sounded soon after they arrived at the airport and people were being evacuated.

So Steve devised a plan to give everyone the best chance possible.  He’d been teamed up with Sam, which was alright.  He wasn’t sure how the others felt about him, or what they knew.  Sam seemed to know everything and it was nice to work with someone for once.  And Sam was a no-nonsense military guy, who treated their fantastical allies and teammates with some skepticism.  Which was honestly a breath of fresh air after everything else.

When he’d been thrown by the youth of the red and blue guy, Sam had flown in and attacked.  It was somewhat embarrassing that the kid had the upper hand for most of that fight, but they worked well together.  He hadn’t expected Sam’s willingness to help him, especially after his aloofness in the car.  But it was apparent he was just being snarky, and that was something Bucky Barnes could do back – even if it felt a little strange.

They’d regrouped with the rest of the team and ran toward the quinjet – but their opponents had time to regroup, too.  The android drew a line in the sand and they’d squared off.  Unsurprisingly, King T’challa was across from him, and attacked as soon as they were close enough.  Though he generally didn’t like to, he’d used his left arm to defend himself.  He’d tried to tell the man the truth about what happened to his father, but he wasn’t interested.  And it was just fortunate that Wanda chose to intervene, or he might have gotten killed.

When it looked bad, he and Steve had to make a run for it.  Both teams were getting a little desperate by that point and it was a relief to get away.  Until they got to the quinjet and the Black Widow was standing in front of it.  He knew that she and Steve had been through a lot together.  And that having to fight her would be hard for Steve.  So he’d have to do it.  Even if he hated the idea of hurting her again.

She’d shot behind them, and both were surprised to find King T’Challa behind them – not many people could sneak up on him.  They’d run passed her to get on the jet.  And finally taken off.  But Stark wasn’t going to let them go that easily, and he and War Machine gave chase.  Until something knocked War Machine out of the sky.  They didn’t turn back.

 

It was a long way to Siberia.  He thought over and over about what he should say to Steve, to make him understand.  To explain why he’d stayed hidden and never come to find his old friend.  To apologize.

“What’s going to happen to your friends?” he asked eventually.  Because he wanted Steve to understand that those people were really the ones he could trust.

“Whatever it is, I’ll deal with it,” Steve replied stoically.  Always taking on burdens that weren’t his to bear.

Staring off into the distance, he considered.  “I don’t know if I’m worth all this, Steve.”

He could tell Steve didn’t like that kind of talk.  “What you did all those years – it wasn’t you,” he said firmly.

Grimacing slightly, he turned his attention to his friend.  “I know.  But I did it.”

Steve didn’t have an answer to that.  He hadn’t expected him to, so it was strange to feel disappointed.  Not because he had wanted to be reassured, not because he wanted Steve to say again that it wasn’t his fault.  Because, on some level, it was.  And he needed Steve to understand that.  But he didn’t know what else to say, so they were silent as they flew to somewhere he’d hoped never to return.

 

When they landed, it was apparent that the doctor was already here – tracks in the snow and a clean truck gave him away.  He headed back to where Steve told him that there would be weapons.  Romanoff’s locker – the selection was impressive.  There was an M249 SAW paratrooper that should prove useful.  Steve didn’t get anything except his shield, and they headed toward the hatch.

He could feel Steve’s eyes on him for a moment – could he tell how afraid he was?  Not afraid like he had been earlier, when King T’Challa attacked him and had the upper hand.  Or when the German special forces were closing in.  No, this was a different kind of fear.  Because it meant a different kind of death – one he might wake up from and have to go on living with.

The doctor knew the words.  He’d already used them.  What was to stop him from using them again now?  What would stop him from ordering the Soldier to kill Steve?  And, even if he chose not to use those godamned words, the other Soldiers were terrifying.  They could certainly kill Steve.  And then go on to destabilize whatever government the doctor chose.  So he would put on a brave face, enter the place where he’d lost everything, and hope not to repeat the experience.

“Do you remember that time we had to ride back from Rockaway Beach in the back of that freezer truck?” Steve asked suddenly, unexpectedly.

Ever since he’d started contemplating seeing Steve again, he’d been terrified to consider that he might not remember everything Steve did.  But this, fortunately, he did remember.  “Was that the time we used our train money to buy hot dogs?” he responded, smiling a little.

“You blew three bucks trying to win that stuffed bear for a redhead,” Steve admonished.

He grinned at the memory and Steve’s ire.  “What was her name again?”

“Dolores.  You called her Dot.”

“She’s got to be a hundred years old right now,” he said, shaking his head.

“So are we, pal,” Steve pointed out, and he smiled. 

Leave it to Steve to know how to settle his nerves.  It was just like it used to be, a long time ago.  He met Steve’s eye and Steve put his hand on his shoulder.  Time to do this.

They left the quinjet and headed across the frozen tundra – it was cold.  He was always cold.  The door was open, which was good, because he didn’t think he knew the code.  They made their way stealthily and intently through the facility to the elevator.  In the tense silence, he looked up at Steve, who gave him a nod.  He returned it, relieved.  Like old times.

It was a big place.  It took time to search it, since there was no guarantee that the Soldiers would all still be in the main room.  And allowing even one to escape was unacceptable.  He led the way, since he’d been here before, with Steve guarding his six.  They were climbing some stairs when there was a noise behind them – creaking metal.

They whirled around to face it, him leveling his machine gun and Steve using his shield to cover them.  “Ready?” Steve asked.

“Yeah,” he replied resignedly.

But then – it wasn’t the doctor or any Soldiers.  It was Stark.  He approached them, taking off his helmet as he did so.  “You seem a little defensive.”

“It’s been a long day,” Steve replied warily.  He stood up and walked over slowly.

“Ross has no idea I’m here, I’d like to keep it that way.  Otherwise I’ve got to arrest myself,” Stark continued, leaning against a nearby pillar.  He was just like his father.

“That sounds like a lot of paperwork,” was Steve’s commiserating response as he lowered his shield.  “It’s good to see you, Tony.”

Stark’s joking manner disappeared.  “You too, Cap.”  But only for a moment.  “Hey, Manchurian candidate, you’re killing me.  There’s a truce here, you can drop it.”

When Steve held up his hand, he lowered his weapon.  Then the three of them continued to explore the base together as a team.


	13. There Was a Time When a Moment Like This

“I’ve got heat signatures,” Stark said.

“How many?” was Steve’s response.

Stark paused.  “Uh, one.”

They walked warily into that room – that place he remembered all too well.  It was dark, the only light coming from the cryo tubes that contained the Winter Soldiers.  That used to contain him while the years slipped by.

“If it’s any comfort, they died in their sleep,” the doctor’s voice came over some kind of speaker system.  The three of them continued moving forward, with him bringing up the rear.  The closest cryo tube clearly had a bullet go through it – and the Soldier inside was slumped in the chair with a hole in his head.

Anatoly Petrov.  He’d known him before the serum, though not well.  The Winter Soldier worked alone.  But sometimes he had to coordinate with other people than his handlers.  He’d also been part of vetting the five candidates for the serum.  So he knew their names.  Not that it really bothered him to find them all dead – the process had changed them in a way that was likely irreversible.

“Did you really think I wanted more of you?” the doctor continued, almost pitying.

“What the hell,” he muttered, lifting his weapon as he scanned the room.

Stark and Steve were walking together on the other side of the apparatus that he didn’t want to look at.  What they thought of all this, he had no idea.  But he had a sinking feeling in his stomach that was threatening to pull him down.

“I’m grateful to them, though. They brought you here.”  The light turned on in the bunker to their left and revealed the doctor’s face in a tiny window.  Steve threw his shield, and the doctor told him condescendingly what the Soviets had intended the chamber to withstand.  Stark responded to that, but Bucky was struggling to pay attention.  What had the doctor asked him in Berlin?  It had been… about a mission.  He’d said they only had to talk about one.  And he was terrified that he knew which one would be worth discussing.

Steve walked over to the window and tried to reason with the doctor, or at least get a handle on what he wanted.  “An empire toppled by its enemies can rise again, but one that crumbles from within?  That’s dead.  Forever.”

A monitor near Steve and Stark turned on and he didn’t need to move closer to guess what it was showing.  “I know that road,” Stark said, sounding surprised.  “What is this?”  He was angry, maybe afraid of what he’d see.

The doctor didn’t answer and the footage kept going.  Stark moved closer to watch, and Steve glanced at him – did Steve know?  He could remember it like it was yesterday.  The way Howard crawled on the ground and talked about his wife before he’d killed him.  The way Mrs. Stark was calling for her husband before he’d killed her.  Sergeant Barnes? Howard had asked – those were his last words.  Before a ghost from his past beat him to death without any hint of recognition.

Stark was looking his way and he raised his eyes to meet his – but how do you apologize for something like this?  Stark turned his attention back to the screen, closing his eyes for a moment in pain.  The horror on his face was changing into anger, and Steve was looking at him carefully.  Which was good thinking, because Stark was ready to attack when Steve held him back.  He automatically lifted his gun again, blinking away tears and prepared to defend himself.

“Tony, Tony,” Steve tried.

The man turned around to meet Steve’s gaze.  “Did you know?”

“I didn’t know it was him,” Steve answered.

“Don’t bullshit me, Rogers.  Did you know?”

Steve clenched his jaw.  “Yes.”

Stark released him and took a step back.  He looked at the screen with a bitter expression, shaking his head slightly.  Then he backhanded Steve, sending him flying.  The Iron Man mask came back over his face and Bucky didn’t react fast enough.  A repulsor beam knocked his gun from his hands, but he wasn’t helpless without it.  He attempted a punch with his left arm, which was stopped as they wrestled for control.

Grabbing him by the throat, Stark took off and slammed him into the floor several yards away – away from Steve.  He was pinned to the ground and Stark was raising his fist to strike when a shield hit him in the head.  Leaving him there, Stark got up to deal with Steve, which he did pretty thoroughly, ending with shooting some restraints his way.  Taking advantage of his distraction, Bucky got up and punched him in the face.  It was less than effective.

Stark flew them across the room, slamming into the wall, and was about to use the repulsor on his hand.  Bucky grabbed him with his left hand and used all his strength to pull it away.  It was hard to tell through the mask, but Stark seemed surprised.  Not that it slowed him down much.  He used the other hand to aim some kind of projectile at him, and he turned the arm at the last second to send it away from them.

The resulting explosion caused both of them to crash to the ground, separated by the debris.  Getting to his feet and shaking his head slightly, he spotted Steve.  “Get out of here!”  He didn’t need to be told twice – Steve wouldn’t be in any danger if it weren’t for him.  So he ran.  There was a silo he could climb instead of having to find the elevator.  Of course… Iron Man could fly.  But maybe Steve could slow him down?  He pushed the button to open the roof and started running up the platforms toward it.

He could hear them talking, then the clash of metal on metal.  Then concrete falling.  He kept climbing and running, aware that Stark was in there with him and Steve was not.  Glancing down, he saw that something was wrong with his flight system.  So he might survive this after all.  But it wasn’t enough to stop him – Stark caught up and tossed him to the other side of the tower, hitting the wall hard enough to knock the wind out of him.

Catching his breath, he looked up at the Iron Man who was aiming his repulsor right for him.  There was nothing he could do to get out of the way.  Then – out of nowhere – Steve!  His shield blocked the blast and deflected it back at Stark.  He dropped away from them, and Steve helped him to his feet.

“He’s not going to stop.  Go,” Steve ordered, looking down at their assailant.

He continued the climb – jumping from platform to platform.  There were crashed behind him as Steve dealt with Stark.  He was almost there – he could feel the cold wind on his face, could see the snow outside as he reached the top.  But then – the giant hinge holding the door up exploded and he barely jumped back down in time to keep from being crushed.

Whatever Steve had been doing must not have worked, because Stark was coming for him.  He spotted a hefty pipe in the debris and took a swing at the other man when he got close.  It was somewhat effective – for a moment or so.  Then Stark grabbed him from behind, choking him.

“Do you even remember them?” he asked quietly, anguished.

“I remember all of them,” he choked out with just as much anguish.

Stark flung them back off the ledge – who knew what he was planning to do.  But something ran into them – Steve – and knocked them off course.  They bounced against the wall and he was free, landing on a platform while Stark and Steve fell to the bottom of the silo.  Gasping a little against what were likely cracked ribs, he rolled over and looked down at Steve’s prone form.

When Stark stood, also looking down at Steve, he waited until Steve was on his feet.  “This isn’t going to change what happened,” Steve told him.

“I don’t care.  He killed my mom.”  Then he attacked.

Steve was a good fighter.  But he was just a man, and punching a metal suit didn’t do too much damage, even if you were a super soldier.  Looking around, Bucky spotted the shield.  Dragging himself to his feet, he hurried over to grab it.  Stark was on top of Steve, so he jumped down from the platform onto Stark’s back, using the shield to strike him a few times before he retreated.

Stark shot at him, and he blocked it using the shield before tossing it to Steve.  They had always worked well together, before the war and during.  And they still did.  Switching off with the shield, they did as much damage as they could against Stark.  Until Stark shot Steve and knocked him back against the wall.  Then Bucky attacked with all he had.  He knocked aside the counterattacks for the most part and backed Stark up against the other wall.  Using his real hand to push Stark’s face away, he used his left to try to dig out the power source in his chest.

Pain exploded through his mind and he dropped to his knees.  Confusedly, he looked over and saw that his arm was gone – the metal one.  That wasn’t supposed to be possible, he thought vaguely before a repulsor beam struck his back and he went down.

As the Soldier, he’d been trained to withstand pain.  Hell, even as a regular soldier in the war, he’d gotten some of that.  But none of that compared to this.  It was like losing the appendage all over again – and he remembered all too well how that happened the first time.  He could hear them fighting, couldn’t tell if Steve was winning or losing, but he couldn’t bring himself to move.

Steve was close by – saying he was his friend.  Stark knocked him back and he could hear Steve gasping for air.  The fight looked like it might be over, so he gingerly turned over to find that he could reach Stark – and Stark was paying no attention to him.

“I could do this all day,” Steve said.  Like he always did.

He reached for Stark’s legs and Stark reacted swiftly, ignoring Steve to kick him in the face.  Lights flashed before his eyes as he lay there in agony.  Until it grew quiet and Steve was standing over him, offering a hand up.  He took it, leaning heavily on his friend for support.

“That shield doesn’t belong to you,” Stark said, making Steve stop.  “My father made that shield!”

Steve paused a moment, then dropped it.  Then they left Stark behind.


	14. Wouldn't Ever Cross My Mind

Everything felt fuzzy – that’s what happens when you get kicked in the head by an iron boot.  He was vaguely aware that his face was wet.  And the loss of his arm was making the cybernetics go a little haywire.  It probably hurt less than if it had been his real arm, but he was in rough shape – more hairline fractures and bruises than he could count.  Steve couldn’t have been that much better, but he provided the support he needed to get out of here.

Leaving the facility meant going into shocking cold.  But he was always cold.  So they hobbled along toward the quinjet.  When they realized they weren’t alone.  Steve stopped short and Bucky almost dropped at the unexpected halt – he hadn’t really been looking where they were going.

Up ahead of them, waiting by their mode of transportation was the doctor and, more unexpectedly, King T’Challa.  He was dressed in his – what was it? – Black Panther suit, but without the helmet.  The doctor was restrained.  So at least that loose end was going to be wrapped up.

“Your highness,” Steve said levelly, waiting.  He was tense, uncertain about what the other man’s intentions were.

“Captain.” 

Silence stretched and the wind blew harshly across their faces.  Bucky’s adrenaline was waning and he didn’t know how long he could stay on his feet.  “You going to take us in?” Steve asked finally.

“No.”

“Then what are you doing here?”

T’Challa smiled ever so slightly at the exasperation in Steve’s tone.  “Fixing a mistake.”

Steve glanced at Bucky then back at the king.  “I see.”

“Where will you go, Captain?”

“I don’t know.”

“Perhaps I could offer you sanctuary.  Briefly,” the T’Challa added.

Steve considered this.  “What about the Accords?”

“I am sure that General Ross would not question my sovereignty.  Especially when I bring him a much more dangerous fugitive than the two of you,” he continued, indicating the doctor.

“What do you think, Buck?” Steve asked under his breath.

Shifting his weight slightly, Bucky forced himself to focus on the present.  “I don’t see any other offers.”

“Thank you, um, your highness.  We accept your offer.”

T’Challa’s lips twitched toward a smile at that, too.  “Come with me, then.  We will take my jet.  I think… that Stark may need this,” he guessed – or maybe he knew – and glanced pointedly toward the quinjet.

Steve nodded, then he and Bucky repositioned themselves to follow T’Challa and the bound doctor up the hill to the Wakandan jet.  It was very pretty but not very big.  They managed to fit alright, though – more room than the tiny car in Berlin.  Almost as soon as they took off, Bucky fell asleep, unable to maintain consciousness any longer.

 

He was awake by the time they were approaching Wakanda.  It was a beautiful, lush country.  Quite a change from the frozen wasteland they had just left.  The King stayed briefly to see them settled before he left to bring in the doctor – whose name was Col. Helmut Zemo, apparently.  While they recuperated, they kept tabs on the outside world.

Zemo was getting revenge for his family in Sokovia.  The rest of their team was in the ocean prison.  Col. Rhodes had broken his back but Stark was working on a way for him to regain mobility (the future was amazing).  The Black Widow had disappeared after helping them escape.  Steve was bothered by his friends’ sacrifice and was determined to break them out.  Bucky didn’t want to appear ungrateful, but he was so tired.  And so afraid to leave this place – if Zemo had found the words that could control him, what would stop anyone else?

Wakanda was the most technologically advanced place on the planet.  While Steve spent his time brooding, Bucky tried to find out what he could about their technological advancements.  They wouldn’t share their secrets, of course, but he found a man named N’Kana who was amused by his enthusiasm and willing to show him around – and talk about what he considered hardly noteworthy achievements, which were still more impressive than anything Bucky could remember seeing.

On the fourth day they were there, N’Kana let Bucky in his laboratory.  To Bucky’s surprise, there was a machine for cryogenic freezing.  It looked much less utilitarian than the one where he’d been kept.

“Why do you have this?” he asked.

N’Kana didn’t know much about the visitors, other than that they were Americans seeking asylum.  The fact that they both grew up over seventy years ago would probably have come as quite a surprise.  “Do you know what this is?”

“Yeah, it’s a cryo tube.”

N’Kana looked at him intently for a long moment.  “I did not know that they were common in your part of the world.”

Bucky smiled slightly.  “They’re not.  I only ever saw the one.”

“Did you spend any time inside of it, Mr. Barnes?”

He didn’t know how much or little he was supposed to say.  “A bit, yeah,” he offered.

The scientist proceeded to ask him a lot of questions about the specs that he couldn’t answer, then gave up when he saw Bucky’s look of bewilderment.  “Was it difficult when you were awakened?”

“It wasn’t a pleasant experience, no.”

N’Kana smiled.  “Well, ours is better.  Perhaps you would like to give it a try,” he added with a laugh.

Bucky grinned in return but it got him thinking.  Later that evening, when he and Steve were in their rooms, he decided to muster the courage to broach the subject.

“Steve.  It’s not safe.”

“What?  Here?  No one’s going to find you here,” Steve assured him, caught off guard.

Shaking his head, Bucky tried to make his friend understand.  “I know.  But if they do, and if they have that goddamned book…  Do you have any idea what they might make me do?”  Steve started to protest, to make more assurances, but Bucky cut him off.  “Steve.  You don’t know what it’s like.”  He considered for a moment.  “Do you know what I was thinking when we flew here?”

“No,” Steve answered slowly.

“I was thinking that it was really nice to have no guilt about King T’Chaka.  Because even though most of the world still thinks I killed him, I actually didn’t.  I was framed by someone else who pulled the trigger.  I mean, pushed the button, technically.  Because I remember so many others.  Not just – not just Howard and his wife.  I’ve killed so many people, Steve.  I almost killed you more than once.”

To his credit, Steve listened quietly, though visibly grew more distressed.  “Bucky…  It wasn’t you.”

“Yes, Steve.  It was.  It was my hands.  Or my skills, at least.  I killed dozens of them, and the only thing stopping me from doing it again is a book we haven’t seen since Berlin.  Anyone could find it and I would be at their mercy.”

“Buck…  Why are you saying this?”

He pressed his lips together for a moment before he answered.  “They have a cryo tube here, Steve.  Maybe… if the king allows it, maybe I could be put into one.  Just until someone figures out how to get these things out of my head.  Or until you find that book,” he added with a slight smile.

Steve did that thing, the one where he smiled but was clearly in a lot of pain.  “Alright, Buck.  We’ll ask him.”

 

It was a few more days before T’Challa returned.  Steve spent most of his time preparing a way to break his friends out of prison.  Bucky helped when he could.  Their old camaraderie had returned on a mission, but things were awkward in the relatively peaceful aftermath.  They were different people than had been in the war and that took some getting used to.  Reminiscing about before the war went pretty well – it wasn’t often that Steve talked about something and earned only a blank look from Bucky.

Steve offered to talk to T’Challa about cryo, but Bucky insisted on doing it himself.  It was a short audience.  Then preparations were made quickly.  N’Kana was disappointed but promised to look into a way of getting the triggers out of Bucky’s head.  Steve was very quiet – he never was one to let his pain show.

When Steve’s plan to rescue the others was essentially done, and everything was prepared from a medical standpoint, it was time.  Bucky was dressed in comfortable clothes and was getting an IV drip when Steve came down to say goodbye.

“You sure about this?” he asked, hands in pockets as he walked over.

“I can’t trust my own mind,” Bucky replied, smiling wistfully at his friend.  Steve had to understand this.  “So until they figure out how to get this stuff out of my head, I think going back under is the best thing.  For everyone,” he added, meeting Steve’s gaze again with an almost hopeful look.  Please understand, Steve, he thought.  Steve nodded, but didn’t seem convinced.  Oh well.  It was worth a try.

N’Kana and one of his associates directed Bucky to the machine shortly thereafter.  Steve stood and watched while the tube closed.  A hiss of air – he closed his eyes – and then – nothing.


	15. The Sun Will Rise With My Name on Your Lips

_Asleep._

_Awakened – disoriented – confused by the unfamiliar faces._

_Reoriented – sometimes the chair – until he was ready to work._

_Traveling – not far.  They moved him when he slept._

_Finding the target and eliminating – stakeouts, tracking, setting traps, sniping, making it look like an accident – all methods he might have to use to complete the mission._

_Debriefing with his superiors – Mission Report – until they were satisfied._

_Asleep again._

_Asleep – awakened – reoriented – traveling – killing – debriefing – asleep._

_Asleep – awakened – reoriented – traveling – killing – debriefing – asleep._

_Asleep – awakened – reoriented – traveling – killing – debriefing – asleep._

_Asleep – awakened – reoriented – no traveling?_

_“Your mission is going to be different this time, Soldat,” his handler tells him.  He is speaking Russian.  His handlers don’t always speak Russian.  Sometimes – no, he can’t remember where he was going with that thought._

_“Ready to comply,” he replies like he’s supposed to.  Even if he is wary of something different being asked of him._

_He is led down hallways to a sort of training area.  It is not empty.  There are girls – young women – twelve of them.  They are performing exercises – very gracefully but he can see how deadly they could be.  When he enters, they stop and look at him._

_His handler – Karpov? – speaks to them.  He is to be their new trainer.  Then Karpov invites them to attack him.  They do – first one at a time then in groups.  They are not successful – he doesn’t know what they will do to him, but he is careful not to injure any of them too badly.  If he’s going to train them, failing at this will not mean their termination – only that there is room to get better._

_Karpov is pleased.  An older woman stands in the corner – she is not pleased.  Karpov tells her to get her girls ready for next time, then leads the Soldier away, back to where he sleeps.  But he isn’t put in the tube.  Instead, he is provided with food and a cot to sleep, as well as his own training regimen._

_Asleep – awaken – train alone – eat – train the Widows – eat – sleep._

_Asleep – awaken – train alone – eat – train the Widows – eat – sleep._

_Asleep – awaken – train alone – eat – train the Widows – eat – sleep._

_The number of Widows is dwindling.  He doesn’t know why.  Some of those who disappear performed poorly with him, but not many.  They are improving nicely in their abilities.  Especially the redhead.  Sometimes, after sessions, she stays behind to talk to him.  She doesn’t want to fail.  She is driven – like him.  So he offers advice as much as he can._

_When there are five Widows left, it is time to test them in the field.  To his surprise, that means being sent out on missions with him.  He is unused to having a partner, but they are good at what they do._

_Elena and planting a bomb in a factory – she was very professional._

_Anna and stealing a vial from a lab – she was afraid but worked through it._

_Vera and following a target until he can be killed in a “mugging gone wrong” – she was impatient and too violent._

_Oksana and inciting a riot – she didn’t react well to being out of the facility and tried to run._

_Natalia and staking out a hotel to wait for a target, then killing him – she was – different._

_The person they are to kill had a change of schedule and will be a day later than expected.  They are already in the field so their handlers tell them to just lie low while they wait.  Natalia is her mistress’s favorite, he knows.  The other four might have been recalled while he completed the mission because they are not trusted in the field.  But Natalia is.  In his sessions, she is the best student – partially because she stays to talk to him afterward and is more interested in his advice than the others.  It is clear that she excels with her other trainers as well._

_She suggests they pass the time by sparring.  Since idleness tends to bring strange thoughts into his head, he agrees.  The session is not as intense or focused as it would be in the facility, with their handlers looking on, and they start talking.  She is curious about him, about how he became who he is.  She is not surprised when he doesn’t know – she doesn’t remember anything before being here, either.  She makes a game out of guessing who they might have been in the real world, before they became expert spies and assassins.  He teases her that she’s no expert yet.  She laughs, but almost manages to bring him down in retaliation._

_Later, they eat and she talks about what she hopes for – she wants to be the best, to serve her country and her people.  To change the world.  He agrees – whenever he has doubts about what he’s doing, his handlers always tell him what an important difference he’s making in ridding the world of these powerful people._

_She tells him what happens to the Widows, what happens when you become friends with one of them.  She is upset by it, though she’s trying not to show it.  He doesn’t remember having to go through such a process, but, then, he doesn’t remember anything.  All he can is offer the fact that he could be her friend – they aren’t competing.  He is Karpov’s favorite, she is the best Widow – perhaps they will work together for years to come._

_She says she would like that, and smiles at him.  And he thinks he would do anything to keep from having this tiny bit of – of niceness taken away from him._

_Nothing else happens that first mission – except completing it successfully.  But – after that…  Their after session discussions become more intimate – both were starving for someone safe to talk to, to share any kind of positive interaction.  And affection.  His days start to look a little different – missing Natalia – training Natalia – missing Natalia.  Every moment without her makes him afraid, especially because the strange thoughts in his head are coming back more swiftly._

_She tells him that maybe he is remembering his old life.  He tells her that it would be easier to be without it – easier not to know.  He doesn’t know if he believes it – she is skeptical.  She wants to know who he really is.  He tells her that no good can come from knowing._

_He should have known that no good could come from any of it – they have jealous masters.  When they are discovered, her mistress forces them apart and he is sent to the chair.  Natalia is forced to sit before him and watch as he is restrained and the apparatus comes down and –_

_Asleep – awakened – the words – traveling – killing – debriefing – asleep._

_Asleep – awakened – the words – traveling – killing – debriefing – asleep._

_Asleep – awakened – the words – traveling – killing – debriefing – asleep._

Warm.

Warmth was spreading over him.

Shards of ice slid down him and he shivered when a blast of cool air reached him.

Blinking, he saw that he wasn’t in the Red Room, or, more importantly, in his HYDRA cryo tube.  He was in a lab in Wakanda and N’Kana was looking at him carefully.  He smiled slightly, and N’Kana grinned.

“We have found a way to get rid of what is in your head, my friend,” N’Kana told him.

He shouldn’t have been disappointed to see no sign of Steve, especially with such good news.  “That’s great – how’d you figure it out?”

N’Kana looked thoughtful for a moment.  “Your friend brought us information on how the triggers were implanted initially.  My team and I have found a way to reverse the process.  In theory.  If you will sit here,” he added, motioning to a chair.

It wasn’t like the one he’d been strapped to with HYDRA.  It was clean and white and rather comfortable once he got in it.  He focused on that instead of the blind panic that was welling up.  “Stay still, Bucky,” N’Kana told him as he carefully fit something around his forehead.  He did as asked.  There was pain, but it wasn’t excruciating.  He gritted his teeth but didn’t scream or writhe.  And it didn’t last very long.

“Did it work?” he asked warily.

“It is difficult to tell.  Perhaps you would like me to use the words on you?” N’Kana offered.

Taken aback, Bucky looked at him hard.  “Do you know what they are?”

“No, Bucky.  I thought you might.”

He nodded slowly, and insisted that no one else be in the room.  Then he had the scientist repeat after him.  When it was done…  “Nothing happened,” he said, grinning.

N’Kana returned the expression.  “It worked!  Would you like me to call the Captain or would you like to sleep again?”

“Call Steve, please.  I’ve done enough sleeping.”  N’Kana nodded and started to leave the room.  “Wait.  Is he not here?”

“The Captain?  No, he hasn’t returned since you went to sleep.”

“He wasn’t the one who brought you the information?” he asked, wondering who else would have done it.

N’Kana seemed surprised by the question.  “No, Bucky.  It was your Russian friend, the red haired woman.  What was her name?”

“Natalia.”


	16. 'Cause Everything Will Change Tonight

It was late afternoon when he was awoken and Steve returned the following morning.  He was in the lab again, having some tests run.  N’Kana insisted, wanting to make sure everything was fine.  At only two months, he was pretty sure it was the shortest time period he’d ever spent frozen, so he wasn’t particularly concerned about that.  Though he had been thinking about the trigger words a great deal.

“Buck,” Steve said with a warm smile as he walked into the lab.  Then he paused, glancing at N’Kana.  “Is it okay if I’m – ?” he trailed off uncertainly.

“Yes, Captain.  I am almost finished,” N’Kana replied, seeming amused.

Needing no further assurances, Steve continued moving and embraced Bucky – a little awkward, since he was sitting down on the exam table.  “So, how is everything?” he asked.

“Well, I’ve been asleep, so I’m not really sure,” Bucky replied with a grin.  Steve made a face at him.  “No, it’s good.  I think.  N’Kana could tell you more.”

Steve glanced over at the scientist, who looked up from his monitors.  “He is in good health, mostly recovered from his injuries from – ah – from before.  We seem to have gotten rid of the brainwashing.”

“That’s great.  What about his arm?” Steve asked.

That gave N’Kana pause.  “I did not realize – I will look into it, Captain.  It would be a pleasure to come up with a more advanced model,” he added with a grin at Bucky, who winced.

“Nothing too fancy, N’Kana.  Just an arm, not a Swiss army knife.”

Steve laughed at that.  “What, you don’t want it to have a lock-pick or a bottle-opener?”

With a smile, Bucky shook his head.  “I’m not going to say that wouldn’t be useful.  I’m just saying, you know, priorities.  I’m sure whatever N’Kana comes up with will be perfect,” he added.  “Are you done with me?”

“For now.  Come see me tomorrow and we’ll talk about an arm,” N’Kana replied, sounding distracted as he read his monitors.

Hopping down from the table, Bucky headed for the door with Steve a little behind.  “You okay, Cap?” he asked lightly.

Steve seemed to be somewhere far away, but he smiled.  “You don’t need to call me that.”

“Everyone else seems to,” he pointed out with a shrug.  “I’m sure you’d rather I not call you Stevie like I did when we were kids.”

Snorting, Steve shook his head.  “I think that might detract a bit from my authority.  But I’m not Captain America anymore.”

Bucky stopped and looked at him.  “Why not?  What’s happened?”

A flicker of confusion crossed Steve’s face.  “I, uh, went against the government to help this fugitive, you may have heard of him.  Then I fought the guy who bankrolls the Avengers, and left my shield behind.  I think we should go ask N’Kana about your loss of memories,” Steve teased tentatively.

“No, I remember.  I just don’t see why you can’t still be Cap is all.  Did you bust out your friends?” he continued, changing the subject as he started walking again.

“I did, yeah.  We’re lying low, but doing some good work.”

“Like what?”

It took the rest of the walk to their quarters for Steve to explain what kinds of things superheroes did when they didn’t want to attract attention.  It was mostly spy stuff.

“How do you get your information?” Bucky asked as Steve ordered some food.  They couldn’t exactly be seen outside the building.

Steve frowned slightly.  “Oh, uh, you know.  Barton’s on the team and he’s a great spy.  So he gives us missions.”

“Tell me about your team.”  He knew their names and abilities, but he didn’t know what Steve thought of his new friends.

“Well, there’s Sam – the Falcon.  You worked with him.  He used to be in the Air Force – they split the branches after the war – which is how he got his suit.  And his training.  He has a drone that can be used for recon.  He’s a good guy.”

“Sounds like it.  How did you meet him?”

A rueful smile crossed Steve’s face.  “Out jogging.”

Bucky raised an eyebrow.  “Is that how you recruit new Avengers?”

“No, nothing like that.  I just, uh, we hit it off.  I met him a couple days before – you know, all that stuff in DC.  Figured no one would look for me or Nat at his place,” he said with a shrug.  “Turns out he was pretty qualified, so I asked him to come in after Thor and Banner left.”

“I see.  Nat?” he asked, ignoring the way his pulse quickened.

“Natasha Romanoff.  She was a spy for the KGB and then Barton got her to change sides.  She worked for SHIELD and brought us all together in New York.”  He paused, thoughtful.  “She was a good partner after that.  I don’t know how I would have survived that stuff with HYDRA without her.”

Steve fell silent, contemplative.  “Did you, uh, were you seeing her?”

“Oh, no, not at all.  We were just good friends,” Steve answered with a smile.

“That’s good.  I think the future might be too much to take if you of all people had two lady friends,” Bucky teased.

Laughing, Steve shook his head.  “Not sure I even have the one.”

“You haven’t seen her since Berlin?”

“No, but she’s working.  She actually got to keep her job, unlike the rest of us.  So it wouldn’t be safe for me to go see her,” Steve explained.

“Are you writing to her?” Bucky wanted to know.

With a smile, Steve looked over at him.  “I don’t think that’s how they do things any more, Buck.”

“Hmm.  Well, I’m sure one of your new friends can offer you dating advice.  Any of them seeing someone?”

“Barton’s married.  Lang has an ex and a daughter, Sam’s single, and Wanda’s – well, I’m not sure about her,” he added thoughtfully.

“Why not?”

Steve leaned forward conspiratorially.  “I think she might have a thing for Vision, honestly.”

“The – android guy?” Bucky asked incredulously.

Shrugging, Steve sat back again.  “I don’t know.  The future’s pretty strange, man.”

“Sounds like it.”

“So.”  The expression on Steve’s face was very serious as he figured out what he wanted to say, and Bucky waited apprehensively.  “When you’re healed, maybe after you have a new arm…  What are you going to do?”

Surprised by the question, Bucky didn’t answer right away.  What did he want to do?  All he’d really wanted to do for as long as he could remember was to find some kind of peace.  But sitting idle wasn’t something he’d ever enjoyed, even before he had terrible dreams and programming in his head.  So he obviously wanted to do something with his life.  Something to make up all the things he’d been doing, ideally.

While he’d been hiding out, before he’d decided not to go to Steve, he had thought about being an Avenger.  It was a fantasy and he had no idea if it would work.  But now…  He was pretty sure Steve was wanting to invite him to join the team, even if it meant being on the run.  But he was good at that.  And would probably be able to help with the spy side of things more than what they usually did.

Steve wanted his friend back, that was clear.  And, even if that friend no longer quite existed, would it be so bad to volunteer for the job?  It would be great to be on a team again.  To be around people at least kind of like him, and to be able to offer something without losing himself again.

“I don’t know.  Try to do some good to maybe balance the scales, you know?” he finally answered.

With a nod, Steve clenched his jaw.  “You could come with me.  It’s not ideal – we aren’t really heroes right now.  But I told Tony that he could call us when he needs us.  So maybe someday soon there will be a good enough reason for the team to get back together.  And I’d really like it if you were there then.”

Bucky smiled at his friend.  “I would, too.”

 

When he headed to bed later that evening, he considered why he hadn’t told Steve.  About Natalia.  But Steve and she had been on the run together for a few days while the Winter Soldier was hunting them down.  And he’d worked closely with her plenty of times since then.  So, if she wanted him (or anyone) to know, she would have told him.  Assuming she remembered – and, if she didn’t, then there was no point in saying anything.

Someday, as Steve said, they might be on the same team.  And he would keep their secret until he could talk to her about it.  He wouldn’t let himself have high expectations for a reunion – he had tried to kill her more than once since then.  But the fact remained that they had more in common than anyone else around, and he was looking forward to working with her again.  Whatever that might look like.  Until then, he would do what he could to make up for his years working for HYDRA.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who's commented or left kudos! I will be posting the sequel in a week or so :)


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